The Great Mumsnet Laundry Debate, Part II. £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

To celebrate Fairy Non Bio’s sponsorship of the Mumsnet Talk App, we’ve launched The Great Mumsnet Laundry Debate - as with all great series, it's a three-parter. Part I was all about how often you wash your bed sheets and part II is about how much you wash your bra...

Bra washing can not only be time consuming but can also require a bit of brain power. First there’s the conundrum of how to wash them, then there’s how often to wash them. Do you put them on a gentle hand-wash setting with a delicate detergent? Do you put them in a mesh bag to protect the straps from getting caught up with other items? Perhaps you only put them in a machine with other light clothing so the elastic doesn’t get stretched by towels and jeans? Or maybe you simply bung them in with everything and put them on a 40C wash? The options can make your brain hurt. So how often do you wash your bra? Are you the kind of person who can’t wear a bra more than once? Or maybe you can wear it for a week?

Whatever your bra-washing process, share it with Fairy Non Bio in the thread below, and maybe even give us a live update from the Mumsnet Talk App as you’re waiting for the load to finish. If you avidly check out Mumsnet's talk boards, you should download the app for yourself. It's free, and allows you to be part of the conversation wherever you are!

All those who post below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

I put mine in with the rest of the washing but in a mesh bra bag so they don't damage other clothes.

Ha ha, wow. Talk about overthinking it! I don't even separate whites and colours. My approach to laundry is very non-apartheid. This includes my bra(s? Do I even have more than one that still fits?). Occasionally if I'm feeling fancy I'll chuck it in with the baby's clothes.

Oh, and vouchers would be spent on new bras, obvs. Being an H cup my underwear is structurally challenged at best!

In my alter ego life I hand wash my bras. But in reality, they get washed in with other like minded colours and get hung up on the airer. They seem to cope. I wash my sheets once a week and no less!

Most of my underwear, bras included are black so I always have matching stuff and it can all be washed together. Just throw my bras in the machine on 30degrees with Fairy and dry on a hanger afterwards. Launder after one wearing in very hot weather, otherwise every 2 or 3 days usually. I shower everyday so they don't get grungey

Wash every few days and just throw in with anything similar coloured

I just alternate the different coloured ones throughout the week depending on what I am wearing - and they go in the normal wash that week depending on what colour is due on what day. I'm pretty certain this is not the best way to be caring for them but life is too short for me to get strung up about treating them with more tlc!

I just put them in the delicate 30 or 40 degree cycle depending on what else I am washing but I try to separate whites and everything else. I used to hand wash bras in the days when I had the time.....

I have about 5 white bras and change then every 3 days unless I've been to a smokey bonfire or particularly hot for some reason.

I don't like whites going grey so I always wash then at 40 degrees in a normal white wash (usually wth white towels and DS's white uniforms, so no need for any special measures).

I always use a mesh bag, a tiny drawstring one, so I don't have to bother doing the thing up for the wash. Then it gets hung on an indoor airier to dry. I hang the mesh drawstring bag on the airier too, so it's always there where it should be after years of losing it somehow.

I have non underwrites that just get lobbed in with everything else and then inderwise ones that I put in a mesh bag on delicates but they don't get used very often!

Nothing extra special for my bras. Just in the wash with the same colour. Not in the tumble drier though!

I wash them with the every day clothes

Always put in a mesh bag one bra wire can wreck your washing machine and you will not be covered for call out repair.
As a family of 5 would not like to have no washing machine for however long it takes for someone to fix all because of a bra wire !
I then would separate white from colours and wash at 30c.

I hand wash (seem to be in a minority here). I am well endowed, a good bra makes the difference between back pain and no back pain at the end of the day for me, so I pay what feels like a lot for them and I don't want them breaking/stretching/deteriorating faster than they ought to through machine washing.

Also to be fair, it is a little bit time consuming but not that much? they just go in the sink with a bit of special no-rinse hand wash liquid (called Soak), and bob's your uncle

Mine get thrown in the regular wash with either lights or darks as appropriate after 2 days wear, simple!

After 2 or 3 wears usually. They all get chucked in with the regular wash too, which is 40 degrees. No mesh bags. Mine are very unfancy but now I'm thinking I need at least one fancy bra in my life. I'd still bung it in the wash exactly the same though.

I have a mesh bag. Bras are washed after one day in summer, or a couple of days at this time of year. Whites and coloured kept separate, majority are black or coloured as I hate white bras (they go grey so quickly). Coloured items done on ordinary 40 wash with mesh bag inside machine.

Bag then taken out and bras are either dried on line in summer or over back of chair in winter. Not tumbled. Mesh laundry bag from Lakeland does seem to have improved wear and tear issues, and reduced frequency of underwiring popping through.

I never handwash them. Life is simply too short.

I wear each bra a few times then handwash them all together once every couple of weeks. It doesn't take long, and it protects them and my dodgy washing machine from damaging each other.

Like most posters I wash mine with other clothes of similar colours, no special treatment. I probably wear the ones that fit best about 3 times, any others just two. I know that I need to get some new ones but it is one of those things that gets put off.

They go in the wash with stuff of a similar colour. I try to avoid putting them in with tights though and, when I can remember I do up the clasps.

Good god. Life's too short to put my bra on in a special wash. My bras are black and they go in the machine with everything else that's black/dark colours. I'm breastfeeding at the moment so they get washed frequently.

Worn once. In a mesh bag with a general wash.
Fished out before everything else is tumbled.

I've lost too many underwires to put them in the general wash. I collect them until I'm on the last one, then handwash the lot in the bath (really just means soaking them in hot water with handwash solution for a couple of hours, then giving them a quick scrub and a squeeze under the tap). They are one of the few luxuries I allow myself though, after years of badly fitting bras I discovered Rigby and Peller (I'm an F cup ) so at £80-£100 a bra I'm very careful with them!

Mine go in a normal 40c wash every 2/3 days. I'm very lazy with my washing I just group similar colours together, bung in a colour catcher and hope for the best.

I wash my bra every few days on delicate wash to avoid it ruining. I use a liquid detergent but no mesh bags.