Is life too short to sort laundry

[UntidyAn0n]

I'm very fussy about sorting loads, whites and colours, darks, towels etc. I put treatments in and have glowing whites. But today I thought stuff it and shoved the days laundry and a colour catcher in the machine and switched it on (wildest thing I've done all year! )
Am I destined for grey whites?

In a word - no.

I know I really shouldn't, but when I see someone with "grubby" whites, I just can't help but think their hygiene isn't up to scratch; I just can't help it.

Was that to me Merry? If so, yes I would, plus a couple of colour catchers. The kids wear a lot of different bright colours, I don't have enough, say, yellow, to make up an entire wash, so in they go with the bright greens and oranges. Nothing's ran so far.

I've never separated laundry and never had a problem, but I've also never owned very many white clothes or bright colours that bleed like red. I tend to go with pink or purple blouses/shirts and grey tees. Most of my wardrobe is brown or black.

I have 3 loads:
Lights
Darks
Towels/bedding

Lights at 40
Darks at 40
Towels and tea towels at 60
Bedding at 60

This is as far as i can stretch myself.

I do whites/lights, and darks, with an occasional white-only very hot wash.

Things do get dingy if you wash them all together.

I once lent a colleague a pair of dd's nice white tights for some event of her dd's. (We were living in a country where you couldn't find such things easily). She returned them after just one wash decidedly less white, and that was when I understood why all nearly all her clothes were a sort of muddy greyish blue-ish mauvey colour. Everything chucked in together.

Christ.

I do as follows:

My stuff
DD's stuff
DH's stuff
Bedding

That's it! Towels get thrown in to any load that has room, and often 'my stuff' will get mixed in with DD's or DH's stuff. I don't use colour catchers. Nothing we own is 'muddied' in colour by doing it this way. I would much rather use my time doing stuff other than laundry.

*We don't have any whites.

Generally, lights/ darks. I have a double laundry basket with labels so they're sorted at the start. I'll do extra washes for things like bedding/ towels as needed. I have more darks so might sub-divide denims and blacks if there's more than one wash to protect the brighter colours. I'm usually a slattern by most of mumsnet's domestic habits, but I like to keep light colours looking fresh.

DH does his own washing and slings everything in together so it all goes grey.

Don't have many white clothes, but I seperate lights, darks, delicates, towels, bedding, cleaning cloths/tea towels, dog bedding/towels/clothes. Clothes get separated as they're taken off - I have an ikea Kallax cube in the dressing room, one cube each for lights/darks/delicates/towels. Each cube is about a loads worth so you can see when one is full then you wash that category. I put a load on most mornings.