Can You Wash Light Blue And White?

One of the most important rules of laundry Is the segregation of clothes based on colors. If you’re doing that, then you can easily avoid color transfer in the washer.

When you decide to sort your clothes based on color, the three categories actually hit the mind; the lights, the whites and the darks. After all that, you also need to make sure there isn’t any fabric in any category that bleeds. If there is, then you have to wash it separately.

If you understand this basic principle of clothing care, then you can definitely perform laundry without running into issues.

Now let’s apply this teaching to light blue clothes and whites.

Can you wash light blue and white together? If not, why, and if yes, when is it safe to do so?

The Things To Note

Don’t wash light blue with white if it bleeds

White would almost always never bleed, but other colors have the tendency to release dyes because of the bigger likelihood that the fivers were impregnated with colors to make the fabric look the way it looks.

So if your light-blue clothes happen to bleed: something which can easily be tested by continuously dabbing a moist cotton swab over an inconspicuous area of the cloth and checking if there is any color transfer to the swab, you want to steer clear of washing it together with whites. It would leak dyes and result in whites that now look like a tye and dye work.

Don’t wash when you want to bleach the whites

Another situation when pairing light blue clothes with whites would be a very terrible advice is when you intend to bleach the white clothes.

In this case, avoid washing the two colors together. The reason is simple, bleach, especially chlorine bleach (which is the regular thing used in whites) whitens and brightens fabrics, and as a result, it will end up causing color damage to any other fabric that is colored and also part of the laundry bunch.

If you’re using a color safe bleach however, then, and only then, is the practice safe. But even with that, you should ensure to perform a colorfastness test to ensure that the bleach is compatible with the colored fabric. And how do you perform this test? Simply get an inconspicuous area of the cloth and add one or two drops of diluted bleach to the area. Let sit for about 2 to 3 minutes and then rinse, allow to dry and inspect for color changes or destruction of the fibers. If you find any, steer clear of using that bleach on your colored clothes.

Combine light blue with other colors that don’t bleed

Not only whites, if your light blue clothes end up not bleeding, you can actually combine them with other colors that do not bleed too, and these clothes too with whites in the washer! They would clean perfectly well. 

One thing you want to take serious note of though is that the key rules of laundry dont just stop with sorting clothes based on color, after color, you should sort based on weight and how delicate the clothes rank. 

Is your light blue cloth a bit structured and rough? Is it is a bed sheet or towel? Is it a shirt with nice patterns of embellishments on it?

Take note of these things and further separate clothes based on roughness, size and also delicateness. Large sized items like bed sheets will end up wrapping arous really small clothes and sometimes prevent them from getting washed. Rough clothes too can cause tear to delicate materials or hit against their embellishments and cause them to destroy or fall off. 

When washing clothes with embellishments, wash them alone, preferably by hand. If you must use the washer, put them in a mesh bag (wrong side out) to protect the outer surface of the fibers. Also, go for a delicate cycle that offers shorter and gentler wash and rinse cycles. 

How to preserve the colors on your clothes

The best way to preserve the colors on your clothes is to avoid washing them in hot water consistently. Hot water strips dyes from fibers which hold the colors of your fabric, and as a result, that makes your clothes look faded, especially when they’re black. 

Instead of hot water, opt for warm water or better still, cold water. When you’re using cold water, you’ll have to fall back on laundry products and techniques like soaking to release soiling a bit faster and more efficiently.

Another thing you can do to boost the intensity of clothes is to add vinegar, ¼ cups of it to the rinse cycle of your laundry. Not only will you get soft and fluffy clothes, you’d also notice brightness in their overall appearance. 

You can also wash new clothes with salt to prevent excessive run off of dye as you wash them. For this purpose you want to use ½ cups of salt in the wash cycle. 

Another important thing you can do is to fall back to the detergents that seek to preserve the intensity of fabrics, for instance Woolite dark for dark clothes and other detergents alike, targeted for specific colors of clothes. These have been rid of the bad chemicals that make clothes look faded and rough with time.

In case you didn’t know also, washing your clothes regularly will make them fade a lot more quicker than if you’re giving them time between washes. 

Now that doesn’t mean you should keep clothes dirty for weeks before giving them a bath, especially those with stains, and the stain will completely set it. It means you should try as much as possible to preserve the freshness of your clothes for a bit more time so you cut out the unnecessary times you have to dump them in the washer!  

Can you wash grey with whites?

It’s simple, just as with light blue clothes, if the gray fabrics do not bleed in the washer, then there is no reason why you cannot pair them in the washer with whites. 

Take note however, testing for colorfastness sometimes isn’t as easy as dabbing a moistened cotton swab and taking a verdict of your own.  Sometimes, clothes can be made up of different sections with different dyes, and you may have to check those too to be really sure that colors don’t run off! 

Othertimes, the clothes might actually bleed lightly, when beaten up in the washer with hot water and other stuffs, and that is why it’s said: whenever you can, always wash whites with whites and avoid pairing them with other colors in the washer! 

To really determine if a cloth will run off even a little amount of dye, or will bleed into a white, wash it with a white handkerchief and observe if there is any color transfer, or you can use a color catcher for better result. 

Final Thoughts

You can watch light blue clothes with whites when the light blue fabrics do not leak off dyes in the washer. If they do, wash them alone to prevent color transfer to the whites which can damage their overall aesthetics.