Sorting clothes for laundry is something that most everyone needs to do. Not surprisingly there are a variety of ways to do so. Most sorting methods have valid points and things that others can learn from. By knowing a little about the different methods used to sort clothes, you can mix and match techniques to find the one that works best for you.

If you live alone or are in charge of your own laundry only, sorting clothes is very easy and tends to be not very time consuming. However, in a household of people with larger amounts of laundry, having an efficient sorting method saves time from this often-done chore. Some households have separate clothes baskets, hampers or bags in each room, where each person or people in that room store their dirty clothes. This is a good idea if you tend to wash children’s clothing separately from adult clothing. Alternatively, some households have a central dirty clothes depository. It may be one big bin, whereby everything must be sorted before laundry can begin. It may also be separate containers, one each for lights, darks or other categories of clothing.

If you are one of those households whereby everything goes into one place, sorting clothes for the laundry is a weekly or more often task. An easy and quick way to do so is to line up multiple laundry baskets and sort all the clothes at one time. By putting the clothing in a basket as you separate it, it is then ready to be transported to the washing machine once you have finished the sorting. Load number 2 will also be ready and waiting as soon as you’ve finished the first one. Alternatively, you can create piles of pre-sorted clothes on the floor on wash day so you can just scoop the next batch as needed. This is ideal if you do not have laundry baskets or have just one.

The simplest sorting method for clothes is to separate lights from darks. This eliminates the chances of dark colors bleeding onto light colored clothing and ruining it. This is the most basic of methods and should definitely be used by anyone who does laundry. If you choose to put all your clothes in a washer at once, sooner or later you will have the misfortune of ruining your lighter clothes.

Another method of clothes sorting that some people use is rather complicated and requires a little explanation. In this situation, darks are separated from lights. However, whites are completely separate to avoid becoming dingy from being washed with lights that have a little color in them. Separate whites also mean that chlorine bleach can be used whereas only color-safe bleach can be used with lights. Red colors are also separate, because reds are the main culprit in colors bleeding. Therefore they are best washed alone. Clothing requiring special treatment is another pile of clothes, to be hand washed, washed separately or dry cleaned.

Other loads of laundry consist of towels alone because they are too abrasive to be washed with other items. Bed sheets are a load to themselves because they must be washed in hot water. Kitchen towels, cloth napkins and tablecloths are yet another load, because even though they may be possible additions to the towels and sheets loads, some people don’t like the idea of fabrics used next to the body being washed with food related fabrics.

While not many people adhere to this rather strict method of sorting clothes, in reality most people have a combination somewhere between the basic method and the complicated method that works well for them. Try a few methods on for size to see which is best for you.