How do you separate laundry?

[Moonlightdancing]

So.. need some honest opinions here. I posted a comment on a previous thread mentioning that washing tea towels together with knickers is gross IMO. Received quite a few comments telling me I'm uptight and bizarre. I honestly think that even if you wash them at 90 degrees, you still shouldn't mix tea towels and underwear. Am I in minority then thinking this? Genuinely curious.

So let me get this straight. You ignore guidelines about washing meat, which is likely to make you unwell.

Yet think everyone who washed their pants and tea towels together on a 60 degree wash are filthy and unhygienic?!

But your poo partical pants are acceptable to be washed with pjs on a 60 degree wash.

What do you think is happening in a 60 degree wash with pants and pjs that isn't happening with teatowels in there?

And how do you know you've cleaned every single bacteria splatter from the meat? Have you seen how far they travel?!

I do

-light wash
-dark wash
-hot wash for gym gear.

That's it.

So you do a pants only wash?

How wasteful.

I do: whites, light colours, bright colours, darks, towels and bedding and tea towels/cleaning cloths. But then there's six of us so there's always mountains of washing - I'm never struggling to find things to make up a full load!

I don't think I'd do tea towels and knickers together, but I wouldn't bat a eyelid at someone else doing it.

It is, and I’m amazed that anyone thinks it’s ok to do it!

However well you clean it, there will be bacteria remaining from faeces and urine. It’s impossible to clear them 100%. If you like that on your tea towels- fine!

It’s fine to wash clothes together, but not mix clothes, especially underwear, with tea towels- can you not see that?

I've been washing tea towels
with clothes for decades and no one has died yet 🤣

No.

Can you please explain why pants and pjs washed at 60 is ok, why tea towels washed at 60 is ok but they both can't go into the same wash at 60?

What is happening in the washing machine where these combined objects don't become clean if put in together?

That's what the OP insists but no one can explain it.

The pants only wash comment washing reference to someone who said they absolutely cannot have the dirt off their pants swilled around a tea towel. Again, what is happening in the machine where pants and tea towels combined in a 60 degree wash, are not becoming clean?!

Do you overthink in other aspects of your life or just laundry?

Yup.
Best thing ever! I love it.

Anyone who is separating out underwear is a lunatic. Whites/darks/brights separately are my only rules.

Nope, many of us can't. And nobody who does see it has yet been able to explain why they trust their washing machine to wash pants satisfactorily if they are with other clothes but if they are with tea towels they turn into poo-ridden disease vectors.

If you can’t see why it’s not good for tea towels to swirl round a washing machine along with bodily fluids from underwear, then I don’t see how I could convince you! Plus there is a need for a regular washing machine clean with an appropriate product.

Some could say you're grim for wiping up spills and mess with a tea towel. How many tea towels a day do you go through doing this? Do you replace the tea tea towel after every wipe?

A cloth is for wiping up spills, not the thing used to dry cutlery and dishes. Even if you have a dishwasher sometimes things have a water build up that you need to dry off.

I have one tea towel on the go for a week (mostly I leave my dishes to dry on the rack) - not a chance it's getting its own special wash! It goes in with everything else. The only separation I have is sheets, because they're too big to go in with other things in the small machines in the communal laundry. Even bath towels can have my pyjamas in with them. As for separating pants, pfft. This sounds like so much paranoia about GERMS!!! being anywhere.

You've still not explained what's wrong with it though. Do you know how a washing machine works?!

Why are pjs coming out clean of a 60 degree wash with pants but tea towels aren't?

Also, if the 60° wash doesn't remove all these poo particles why doesn't the OP get a new machine after every underwear and pj wash? Surely every subsequent load is covered in these poo particles?

I was starting to wonder if I was the problem!!

A 60 degree wash is killing all the bacteria off everything being washed on the machine.

But people genuinely believe that it doesn't do that if tea towels are added to the wash.

I wash at 40°, all care labels on my clothes say 30° or 40°. My immune system takes care of any bacteria, our skin, homes, surfaces, drinking water etc all contain bacteria unless we live in a sterile bubble.

There is no need for obsessive hygiene measures - multiple cleaning products, disinfectants etc. Exposure to these chemicals causes more harm and we don't need them. How do people think we survived as a species? Our ancestors didn't disinfect the caves!

My home is clean and tidy, but I don't make life more complicated by using multiple products or having weird laundry rules.

www.news-medical.net/health/What-Are-The-Health-Effects-of-Over-Sanitization.aspx

1. Hot wash towels / cloths etc. and bedding at 60.
2. Usual clothing 30-40 most things are usually okay with this.
3. Whites wash just to keep them white and with whitener powder etc.
4. And then on ad hoc basis if something particularly is new and worried about colour running or needs particular delicate cycle etc.

But yes I agree I am funny about underwear in with cleaning cloths etc.

Ah,is this why David Beckham has a new pair of boxers every day. This thread is really hilarious. I am very germ/virus conscious. Was nursing over 40 years,nursed some very dodgy things during barrier and isolation. Lots of hand washing, cleaning, not to obsessed level. You need some bacteria microbes on the skin and in the gut.

Pjs may be clean enough to wear, but tea towels need to be extra clean. Whereas a few bacteria on your pants may be acceptable, contaminated tea towels drying your plates aren’t. Many aren’t washing at 60, they’re washing at 30. If you don’t mind bodily fluids swirling around your tea towels, carry on!

I don’t like it on my tea towels, no.
Which is why I put them in the machine and wash them clean.

Even if this rumoured peanut sized bit of faecal matter is in there, it’ll be broken down and rinsed away.

I honestly think it's one of these things people have grown up with. My DM & her DM would never have dreamed of washing tea towels in with clothing but DH's family chuck tea towels in with everything 🤢