Washing at 40 or cold is not a good idea

[Stangerthings]

There is an advert for washing clothes in cold water. I think this is wrong. I washed a load of towels at 40 degrees and had to wash them again as they smelled dirty so how is a cold wash going to remove bacteria?

I would wash mine cold, but everything gets done at 40 here. I might occasionally do towels at 50 if I have a big pile of them. Did you leave them sitting in the machine for ages afterwards?

wouldn't . Gah.

I don’t wash anything above 40; my towels have never smelled dirty

Although I do wash my machine through at 60 every so often so the machine is clean

I add a few drops of tea tree oil or zoflora into mine. They smell lovely when they come out.

tbh they don’t smell without the above even on 40.

I wash everything including towels at 40c or below.

I've switched to 30 and they smell fine

How dirty were they before you washed them? I wash most things at 40 and never have a problem.

I wash towels with everything else at 30 or 40. Bedding (cotton) at 60 or 90.

30° for almost everything and never had smell or stains afterwards.

I tried washing at 30. But I used liquid tablets. Despite what the adverts say they don't melt at 30. I speak as someone who went to parents evening thinking I smelt lovely only to arrive at home to discover a half melted one stuck to my back.

Hmmm.

When I lived in Tokyo, all washing machines used colder water.

I can't seem to get my washing machine to wash below 40.

🤣

I wash everything at 40 apart from towels and bedding which is 60

I wash everything at 30 except for towels and bedding which goes at 40. The only thing that goes through at 60 is the dog towels/bedding.

It all comes out clean.

The enzymes in biological washing powder don't work over 40oC!

Towels are used to dry clean bodies...surely 40 is generally plenty hot to clean them?

When you wash at temperatures below 60 Degrees with regular detergent, bacteria and viruses can survive on your clothes. Ads for washing in cold temperature (30/ 20°C) are for sanitisers that you can put in in addition to regular detergent to kill up to 99% of germs or something like that.
(They contain biocides which end up wherever the water drains to and can be bad for the environment in themselves so overall, I don’t know if they are necessarily better for the environment).
If you don’t use extra sanitiser or take other extra measures to sanitise, washing lower than 60 degrees will not effectively destroy germs.

When was the last time you ran a clean cycle on your washing machine? Sounds like your machine needs a thorough clean, should be done once a month ideally.

Use 30cclothes ,40 c sheets and towels (long wash for the latter two) .Also Dettol laubdry cleanser and Biologiclal liquid no probs at all.

Towels and bedsheets at 60, everything else is washed at 40.

Not being smart, genuinely curious, but if towels look and smell clean following 40 wash, what is the concern about some surviving germs?

Why do you need antibacced clothes? You wear them you don't eat with them.

If they had poo or vomit on or were very very sweaty like sports kit then I'd wash on a 60degree wash , but everyday normal clothing is fine on a 40degree wash.

We dont exactly live in a country teeming with weird and wonderful diseases.

How much harmful bacteria is actually on the clothes? What actually happens if you wash clothes in cold water? What infections have been caused? Where are the bacterial outbreaks from cold water washing?

Destroying germs on towels, oh fgs what insanity is that? When did you last catch anything off a towel??

I wash everything at 30 degrees and never caught anything off my washing yet!

The world is full of 'germs'. We need most of them. They only cause a problem when they get in the wrong place.

You don't want certain germs landing in warm wet food, as they'll breed to problematic numbers. Sat on the skin of your arm, or in your underwear, or behind your ears, they do no harm at all.