Why do ppl in U.S. sitcoms separate their white and colored laundry? Do Americans in general practice this weird custom?
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It isn’t just in sitocms. It’s done in real life also. The white clothes would be washed in hotter water, sometimes with bleach.
The colored clothes would be washed in warm or cold water, no bleach. They’re separated in case the dye from the cloth runs and stains the other clothes. I had some white t-shirts turn pink in the wash because of some red article of clothing in the same load.
Strongly colored clothes can bleed their dye in the wash and discolor lightly colored things. As an example, one time my mom washed a red shirt with the whites and all the underwear came out pinkish.
Semi-related, you should also sort by what temperature you run the wash at. Whites like towels and sheets tend to be more tolerant of hot water, whereas things like cotton or wool are washed at warm or cold water. Likewise delicates like undergarments should be run on a gentler wash cycle.
That’s not an exclusively American nor sitcom thing. Whites get dulled and grey over time if washed with dark colours.
People in sitcoms know how laundry works. So do a lot of Americans. Here’s what you don’t know.
Hot water makes things the most clean. But the temperature can damage some kinds of fabrics, and it can make clothes with dyes bleed their dye. So normally the only things that get washed with hot water are things like sheets, which either aren’t dyed or are all the same color so if the dye bleeds it won’t matter.
Warm water can still make colors bleed, but more importantly it can also still damage some fabrics. The kinds of clothes that are “whites” are *normally* also fabrics that can be washed in warm water. Not always. But a lot of them.
Some fabrics simply can’t tolerate warm water, and certain dyes are going to bleed in anything but cold water. Because of that, most clothes that are colored get washed together in cold water. The *fabric* may tolerate warm water, but the dye can’t, so in it goes.
Each piece of clothes you buy should have a tag with care information on it. It’ll tell you something like, ‘machine wash warm with like colors’. That means it’s a fabric that can tolerate warm water, but you need to be mindful the dye might bleed a little.
If you always use cold water it matters a lot less. Some stuff can still bleed colors in cold water, but it’s a lot less likely. So maybe wherever you are people simply don’t wash in warm or hot water. Or maybe your clothing is almost all fabrics that use one temperature. Or maybe the dyes in the kinds of clothing you buy don’t bleed.
But it’s not a “weird practice”. If you wash a new red shirt with white clothes in hot water it’s very common you’ll have pink clothes when you’re finished.
For the same reason my mom accidentally turned my white sweater pink by washing it with her new red blouse.
So clearly you are not someone who uses bleach when they wash their clothes. Which is fine, I’m certainly not trying to tell you what to do, just mentioning that white clothes will stay whiter longer and look nicer when one uses bleach during the washing process. But this would be a terrible thing to add to coloured clothing. I’m Swedish and we use bleach on our whites in Sweden, as do friends throughout Europe, so it’s definitely not an “American thing.”
As to how common it is, I cannot say though, but if you ask around you’ll find it’s not uncommon.
My wife if 25 years is from Ireland and she washed all the clothes together no seperating colors! Me and my kids also, my daughter came home from college mortified because she never heard of seperating out whites and colors and her friends busted on her…..
It partly depends on the fabric.
Polyester and many other synthetic garments are less likely to bleed color in the wash. But many natural fibers are dyed (cotton, linen, silk) with colors that can bleed onto other items in the wash, at least until they’ve been washed a few times.
Do you not separate your laundry?
White, colored, reds, linen.
Colored would even be split into lights and darks if there was enough laundry and enough of those different types to get full loads.
It was done because the dyes used to dye the cloth along with the detergents used to wash them would tend to leech out of the cloth and dye your other clothes. White clothing being the biggest worry.
Putting your mom’s brand new white blouse in a load of laundry that had something red in it and she’sd gonna be awfully pissed that she now has a brand new Pink blouse.
Darker colored dies tended to make everything grey.
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