No One Knows This Laundry Hack, But It's a Game Changer for Drying Clothes
When learning how to do laundry, one of the first things taught is to sort your light and dark clothes before washing to avoid color bleeding. But the follow-up rule that often gets overlooked? Keeping those lights and darks separate in the dryer as well.
It may seem like overkill, but according to Good Housekeeping's resident laundry expert and Home Care & Cleaning Lab Executive Director Carolyn Forté, it's actually a pretty important step. Not only is it a bad idea to double up the loads in the dryer after washing separately (thus, potentially overfilling your machine), but a few things can go wrong if you throw them all together.
"There can still be some loose dye that rubs off from darks onto lights as items tumble against each other in the dryer," Forté warns. "Plus, light items can deposit lint onto dark items that make them look dingy and can be difficult to remove. And lint can go either way, from dark to light or light to dark."
Instead, Forté says to keep them separate, and dry them on cycles recommended for the types of fabrics and garments included in your load. For instructions on how to dry, check the care and fiber labels on your clothes — usually located on seams, at the back of the neck, or near the back waist of your garments.
And when in doubt about all of the laundry symbols on your clothing labels, use our handy guide:
Remember: Anything with deep blue, black, red, brown or dark gray dyes is considered a dark, whereas garments in pastel shades, cream, beige and light gray should be in your whites pile. Items that are in between — like lavender, pink, orange, light blues and greens — should be thrown in with the colors to be safe.
To keep yourself accountable, Forté says it's best to get in the habit of doing smaller loads, more often, versus trying to cram everything into one large load. A hack she loves is setting out separate sorting bins either in the laundry room or each bedroom to help remind yourself (and others!) to keep their lights and darks separate.
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