Sorting Laundry

Dealing with the laundry problem starts with being sensible when you go clothes shopping. Before you buy anything, READ THE LABEL. When you buy clothes, sheets, pillow cases, and comforters make sure you know what you’re getting into. If too much maintenance is involved, resist the temptation to buy it. (Items that are dry-clean only clothes are a pain because dry cleaning is expensive and hand-washing uses up a lot of time.) If you are stubborn however, and end up buying that chic dry-clean only blazer, make sure that when it needs to be cleaned, that it goes into the right pile. You wouldn’t want that expensive new item to be torn in shreds!

There are 5 piles that a laundry person of late needs to know about

1. Dry clean pile – Suits, coats, delicate shirts and blouses
2. Whites
3. Lights (baby blue, beige, apple green clothing)
4. Darks (browns, blacks, navy blue)
5. Delicates (Put lingerie and underwear in a wire mesh bag for better care in the washing machine)

Also, depending on how finicky you are, you might want to wash your bathroom and door rugs in a separate pile.

We both wash about two piles of laundry every other week and then hand wash and send the dry-clean only clothes to the dry cleaners about every other month. Again, dry cleaning is expensive and many of our interviewees, including ourselves wear a suit at least twice before taking it to the dry cleaners.

Wise Words: It’s worth your time to separate whites from colors from darks…remember the scenario of white garments turning pink because of one red sock? It happens. –Vanessa Go, New York University, Northwestern University,Columbia University