Can I wash underwear and towels together?

[FlingonTheValiant]

I'm gradually learning that most of the housekeeping practices I learnt from Mum are rather skanky unhygienic, so I'm trying to relearn housekeeping.

Some of them I have never done, because I thought they were disgusting even as I child e.g. using the dishcloth (which always stank) to wipe up something spilt on the floor and then using it on washing up without cleaning it . Or the time she used it to clean up owl poo after one got into the house and we had a standing argument as she put it back in the sink and wasn't going to bin it .

Anyway. Right now I'm on laundry.

Currently I do: darks, lights/whites, baby clothes, towels, bedlinen and nappies (this is already a significant improvement on what DM taught me).

I do everything on 30, and then every now and then wash towels, bedlinen and nappies on 60. It all gets an occasional go in the tumbler.

But I've read that this is no good for underwear. So should I separate that out and do it with the towels?

Do I need to always wash towels, bedlinen and nappies on a higher temp?

Also, what do people do with their teatowels? I put them in with whatever, barring nappies and towels. I realised this morning that that includes underwear, so I want to stop that, but I'm not sure what to wash them with instead.

Thanks very much in advance! :)

I do towels, u/wear and shirts together on 50o.

I do towels, tea-towels and bedding on a 60. Underwear goes in with the general stuff depending on colour on a 30 or 40; anything hotter wrecks the elastic/lycra.

I wash everything on 30

It all goes in together, except I do separate by colour.

What domestic crime am I committing now?

My mum did everything together too. And we all survived!

But I separate. I do bedding on it's own at 60. Also towels and teatowels. I do all clothes on 40. I don't separate underwear out. I know my sis does but there are 5 of them so she builds up a load quite quickly. There are only 3 of us. I do sometimes put a load of DHs shirts on at 60 and add underwear.

Yes Buda that's why I don't separate it at the moment, we're two and a baby, so I'd never get a load.

Maybe I'll do it with the towels on 50. And teatowels with the bedding.

I've never done DH's shirts hotter than 30, should I?

messybessie, apparently a survey of clean underwear found that 89% had medium-high levels of bacteria, and a significant proportion (although I couldn't find what) had e. coli. I panicked that I had perhaps missed some vital piece of laundry education. But it would seem there's a huge range, so I'm reassured.

I do bedding and towels/flannels at 60, mainly due to athletes foot prone dh.
dhs socks get washed separately for the same reason.
teatowels/kitchen cloths/sponges also at 60.
anything else is washed at 30, roughly separated by colour.

Whilst a little , I'm slightly of the opinion that as long as I don't lick my knickers it'll be OK

:o good point messybessie, I suppose it's only a problem if you're getting infections etc.

Thanks for replying everyone :)

I imagine we're all pretty immune to our own underwear bacteria - but definitely no licking anyone else's skivvies.

If most underwear has those levels of bacteria, and most people don't seem to be suffering any ill-effects from it, then maybe it isn't really a problem? Was the "survey" perhaps done by detergent or washing machine manufacturers trying to guilt us all into buying their products?

For most of human hostory, we haven't had that much option on how to wash our clothes, bedding, towels etc, and we seem not to have died out yet - it may be "nicer" to wash things to get smells out, but I don't think it is the end of the world, infection-wise.

Don't think so MumInScotland, most detergent companies advocate 30 washes; I think they were trying to prove that this is bad advice.

Found it. It was done by "Hygiene Audit Systems" and commissioned by Kelkoo for some reason. Here

Sorry, this versions says 83% have bacteria, and 89% of those surveyed washed underwear at 40 or under.

But I agree, it's not the end of the world at all, it's just reading it in black and white is a bit of a shock.

I just sort of bung it all in together. No plague outbreak yet.

I do towels, linen and whatnot on 60
White knickers etc go in with other whites on 40
Coloured underwear in with other coloured stuff on 30

And that's it.

And sometimes I get such a back log I shove it all in an Ikea bag and drop it at the laundrette for a service wash. It comes back folded/separated/socks pinned together/linen in sealed plastic covers/soft/smelling lovely.

An overflowing Ikea bag is £10. Which sounds a lot but it's a small price when there is so much laundry you could weep.

I wash towels, bedding, tea towels & whites at 60.
Then lights, darks & bright coloureds at 40.
Occasionally give the machine a wash at 90 with either some white vinegar or bleach in it to give it a clean.

I bung everything in together on 50 on the quick wash unless its a jumper in which case it sits in the laundry bin forever and doesnt get washed at all.

i do everything except my whites on a "quick" wash. I have noooo idea what temp that is. I stick my whites on 95 though but only every few weeks as i dont have much white stuff. Bedding and towels get done seperatly but only because there is no more room in the machine rather than because of "hygene".

Could i get any lazier????

I wish I had a quick wash - in that case I'd probably just use that no matter what the temp. But as everything takes about the same time I feel I have to make decisions.

I wash everything at 30 mostly, might do 40 if things are really mucky, (mud, grass, blood).

I do towels seperatly but only because I wash them once a week and 2 bath sheets and a hand towel is a load.

Ditto bedding.

Once a week a do a wash that consists of tea towels, washing up cloths, cloths out of the cloth box (these are used for everything from washing kids hands and faces to cleaning out the rat cage, wiping spills off of the floor etc) rat hammocks and washable sanpro if applicable, I do this wash at 40, we are all still alive.

Everything is washed at 40. I separate lights, brights abd darks.
Underwear goes with whatever colour it fits in with . And when DD had reusable nappies they got washed with other things as well.

Rat hammocks?? :o

I wash all colours and fabrics together at 30 or 40, with the occasional load of bedding at 60 to clean the machine. Don't forget, it's a washing machine, not a steriliser. Even if it did sterilise everything it would get bacteria on it the moment you took anything out of the washing machine.
Bacteria are not the enemy!

we all have ecoli in ouy digestive systems all the time

depends how dirt stuff is really. In the days of poopie bums and wet knickers, I would do them at 60 degrees. Nowadays most of mine goes in together, at 40 degrees. whites/brights/darks/towels/bedlinen.

Bed linen generally together,but still at 40 degrees. We change beds weekly, most of us wear PJs and dont have bed wetters, so its not really that dirty.

We go through huge numbers of towels, so none of them are ever really skanky....thats just the way we are, fresh towels every other day really.

once every so often I do towels at 80 degrees, as much as anything to clean out the machine.

I think cloth nappies I would do at 80 degrees, to be safe.

Ive never head of seperating out knickers and miscellaneous other clothing -why? I wear fresh every day, I can wipe my arse and not leave skiddies, so can my family, so are we really at risk of some bacterial apocolypse in our knickers? I think not.

So it's just scaremongering then? I'll stick with what I'm doing then. Thanks :)