Q&A for How to Sort Laundry

Always wash like colors with like. You should also wash cold-water-only fabrics separately from hot water loads, or the garments may shrink or fade.

When you're separating your laundry, your dark clothes should go in the wash together, whites go in a wash alone, and light colors go together.

Yes, it matters big time! If you don't, the colors could bleed. For instance, if you wash a brand new black shirt with your daisy-white bed sheets, your sheets are going to turn a dirty gray.

No. You should only add bleach to a completely white load. If you add bleach to a load with any colors, then it will ruin them.

Generally, delicates do not color bleed, so it's not necessary to separate them.

Choose either lights or delicates, since putting it with the whites would risk the colors bleeding onto the other clothes.

Wash it with similar fabrics and worry less about which color category it goes with. Avoid washing it with anything pink, orange, red or purple (they tend to bleed the most) and it also shouldn't go in a load of all whites, either (bleach will ruin the black in the shirt). Alternatively, you could consider hand washing it if it's the only item you have of that fabric.

Try to wash it with like colors. However avoid washing it in whites. The black will most likely bleed onto the white and ruin your clothing.

Yes and no. Women's delicates are best placed in lingerie bags and thrown in with like colors. If you don't want to buy a lingerie bag (or you are washing men's undies), then you can just throw them in with like colors and fabrics. Take them out and hang dry, especially for lace and mesh fabrics. You can make a whole load of delicates or clothes that you would usually only hang dry to make remembering easier.