Some clothes bleed off their dyes in the washer, and that’s not a mystery. If you are unfortunate to pair them up with your lights or whites, then sorry in advance for what you’ll be taking out of the washer after the laundry!
That’s why when it comes to cloth pairing during laundry, you have to make sure you’re getting it right!
In this article, we’ll discuss pairing of colors in the washer: specifically of whites and their cousin color, pink.
Is it doable? And if yes, how?
Whites should never be paired with pink in the laundry. As a matter of fact, whites should never be paired with any other colored garment in the laundry, and should only be washed alone all the time.
There is a likelihood of dye transfer to the whites when you go against this rule, and the stain that results can be notoriously difficult to remove!
The best advice when it comes to washing colored clothes is to sort them out according to colors. So this means that you always separate lights from darker colors, and then make a separate group for all white clothes. In other words, no pairing of pink with blacks or blues with whites etc.
In the rest of the article, we’ll discuss the best practices for washing white clothes in laundry, and also talk more on how you can wash colored clothes in order to avoid color transfer in the washer.
The rules of washing whites
You can’t just pick any white and begin washing. There are rules that govern cleaning white clothes which you have to be conversant with, to ensure you’re getting the kind of result you want.
Here are the most important things to note about washing white clothes
Wash them alone
Whatever you do, always wash white clothes alone! Do not pair them with colors no matter how close in terms of shades they are to white!
When they bleed in the washer, they would leave a terrible print on your whites which would be next to impossible to remove! And at the end of the day, you might find yourself tossing out your favorite set of whites because of an uninformed decision you made.
And here’s one thing that mustn’t go unsaid about clothes of lighter shades. These may appear not to bleed in the washer, mostly from mere inspection of the washer water.
But sometimes, when you pair certain lights with white clothes, you will notice dye transfer in splotches and spots onto your white clothes, which is actually the result of friction between the two clothes resulting in the release and transfer of dyes from the colored garment to the white!
Sort by weight
Not all your white clothes are created equal. You have blankets in the midst of delicate shirts, and you also have heavy sweaters and jackets amidst fragile trousers. So pick out the fragile clothes aside, and make sure to sort out the rest based on weight; and that should only come after sorting based on color, to avoid causing destruction of delicates in the washer!
Heavy clothes should always go with heavy clothes, and delicates having items on them that can fall off or get destroyed should be put inside a mesh bag before washing.
Use bleach
When are you dealing with white clothes, the best way to get them whiter is to use bleach. Typically, chlorine bleach is the best, as it works like magic to deliver brighter and perfectly cleaned garments (but that’s when paired with proper cleaning products and practices).
You can also decide to use a non-chlorine bleach, but you may not get the whitening properties like you would if using chlorine bleach. You may also not be able to get the same degree of disinfection.
What colors can I wash with pink?
Here’s the trick to washing pink clothes. First do spot tests on the clothes to find out whether or not they are colorfast. It’s very simple to perform a spot test, simply use a cotton swab moistened with water to dab against an inconspicuous part of the cloth.
Now inspect for any color transfer. If you find that color transfer happens from the pink fabric onto the cotton swab, then you want to avoid pairing that cloth with any other clothes in the washing machine. Wash them alone and use the gentlest settings and cold water!
On the other hand, if you discover that there is no color transfer even after dabbing as hard as you can, it means that the cloth is color fast, and the next thing you want to do is perform a colorfastness check on the other garments (the same way you did on the pink clothes).
If they don’t run too, then it is absolutely safe to pair the clothes together in the washing machine. But in order to add an extra layer of protection, make sure you wash using cold water as it’s softer on fabrics and doesn’t cause the dyes to loosen up from the fibers of the garment.
I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, but there’s actually another way you can check if a cloth runs off its dyes in the washing machine.
All you need is a laundry product called color catcher which can easily get in the laundry product aisle of your grocery store.
Color catchers are basically sheets formulated to be so spongy (not physically) to be able to catch colors that runoff from clothes in the washing machine. When you wash them together with clothes, you’ll be able to tell when there is a color run off and also to what degree!
Can you wash pink and red together?
Pink is closer to red than red is ever closer to pink. Regardless of this fact however, you cannot wash pink clothes with reds because the latter are extremely prone to bleeding.
It is always difficult to find a red garment that doesn’t bleed. And because of that, you want to avoid pairing it up with any other color especially those that are lighter than it, which also includes pink.
If you have red clothes, wash them separately. As for pink’s, wash them separately too, or if they do not bleed, pair them up with other colors that do not bleed too.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to washing clothes, it’s always advised to wash them according to colors. Whites are advised to be washed alone because they suffer the most when colors bleed in the washer.
For pink clothes, pair them up with any other color so long both clothes are colorfast. There’s a way to determine whether or not clothes are colorfast, and we have made mention of that in this article.
When it comes to the red clothes, wash them separately and keep them away from whites and other colors.
