Washing underwear on quick wash?

[Katie1945]

I like to wash underwear and tights separately but it seems such a waste putting on a whole wash when I can only fill the machine half full (sometimes less).

I’ve had a look in the manual and my machine doesn’t have a half load unfortunately, but the quick washes are listed as only being able to half fill the machine. The problem is the quick washes say they are only for lightly soiled garments and the temperature only goes to about 30 or 40.

I don’t think underwear would get properly clean on a wash for lightly soiled stuff on a low temp. So I don’t know whether to try using the light wash or if to just run the full wash just for half a load. It just seems such a waste of water/energy.

Any advice?

You can still just tumble dry the underwear surely if it goes in the same wash as none tumble dry

Buy enough pants to fill the machine up. Then just do a pants-boiling load once every 6 months.

I am wondering how these " knickers on a hot wash" people cope with washing their own grubby unclean festering bodies. Do they steam their bits like Gwyneth ( who apparently now sells a candle called This Smells Like My Vagina) or do they swish themselves through a disinfectant trough like a diseased sheep ?

If you are tumbling them, then they definitely don't need a hot wash. The quick wash will be fine.

Or- why don't you try it and see? If they come out visibly grubby or whiffy, then it hasn't worked!

I wash the clothes, bung stuff in the tumble drier that can be tumbled then hang the rest up to dry. It takes moments.

I’ve never washed them above 40 degrees and nothing untoward has happened

Should I be on the lookout for my legs turning in to mushrooms on account of the fungus multiplying without me realising?

In New Zealand most people (or at least every single person in my extended family and every single acquaintance and friend) wash their clothes in cold water. Properly cold water out of the cold tap not 30’. Because electricity is so expensive (hydro power no nuclear). Including underwear! I don’t think NZers have disproportionately high rates of fungal infections

You need some mesh laundry bags then OP. Stick all the underwear and other tumble dry-able items inside the bags, and then wash them with everything else. Saves you having to sift through all the cold, wet washing, just empty the mesh bags into your tumble dryer when the washing is done

I wash everything at 30 or 40. Tea-towels in with knickers, bras in with rugby stuff.

All comes out clean.

Oh and FWIW, I mix all sorts of washing, including tea towels and other whites in with the nappies, and nobody has died yet

I wash towels /sheets on 40c .All clothes 30 long wash.If pushed for time use quick wash, and bung in a couple of capfuls of Dettol laundry liquid for good measure .All seems OK so far!

I once got stranded and had to wear the same pants for two whole days. Nothing bad happened.

I can't imagine how washing them on a 40 wash would lead to anything happening.

Honestly I think the paranoia about boiling pants comes from the belief that women's bits are somehow unclean.

I have separate washing machines for dark underwear and light underwear and 2037 pairs of each, so I can do a undies wash every two and a half hours, which is how often I change my knickers. Anyone who doesn't do this is a minging minger.

You made me laugh out loud at my desk @viques

The pearl-clutching on here is amazing. Some of you must have really dirty bottoms to be horrified by washing your pants at 40.

@Twenty2 I keep all my pairs of pants in separate countries, and use nuclear fusion to clean each pair individually. YOU are the minger.

Seriously though, can OP or anybody tell me what they think is wrong with washing pants at 40? (or 30, or cold?) If other things can be washed at those temperatures and come out clean, what is different about pants?

I like to tumble dry the underwear (always raining here and the house is damp). Most of my clothes can’t tumbler dry, that’s why I separate them

But you can still wash it altogether then just put underwear in the TD in fact if you are bothered by Half a wash being a waste then half a TD of underwear is a definate waste when it would dry in a day on a rack

I was everything at 30 or 40 and all mixed in together

@Eckhart I read somewhere that fecal matter can be left behind by washing on anything less than 60c (not that I regularly poop my pants or anything )

But everything is covered in some kind of bacterial 'matter'! Most of our kitchen sponges are probably harbouring more bacteria than our pants before they're washed at all.

@GrannyBags. There are people who wash their pjs and duvets every day? i must be a scrummy cow too.
Oh and underwear just gets chucked in with everything else on a quick 40 wash.

Jeez so glad to read all the other replies after thinking I have been doing things very very wrong for my whole life!!

I wash bedding separately but only because the whole bed's worth fills the washing machine and I will often put towels in together for the same reason but if I only have a couple of tea towels and flannels, they all go on the same wash as my pants, my babies food covered clothes, and leaky nappy vests...

@Eckhart

Poo crumbs or particles or molecules or something.

@QuestionableMouse You've clearly done your research ;)