Do I really need to separate laundry every time?

At minimum, separate lights from darks every time. That prevents the most common problems — dinginess on whites and lint transfer on darks. Weight sorting matters less for small loads but improves results noticeably on larger ones.

Can I wash jeans with other dark clothes?

Yes, after the first few washes. New denim bleeds significantly and should be washed alone initially. Once the dye has stabilised across two or three washes, dark jeans can go with other dark garments.

Does sorting matter less with a cold wash?

Cold water reduces dye bleeding, but doesn't eliminate it. Sorting by colour is still the right habit even when washing cold.

What do I do with brightly coloured new items?

Wash new red, bright orange, and deeply saturated items alone for their first two or three washes. Brand-new saturated dyes are the highest risk for transfer onto other garments.

Should I turn dark garments inside out before washing?

Yes — turning dark garments inside out reduces surface abrasion, which is one of the main causes of fading over time. It also helps protect any printed graphics on T-shirts.

Woman folding laundry and smiling at the camera

All posts

How to Sort Laundry the Right Way

April 14, 20263 min readBy Johnson Yu

Sorting laundry is one of the basics that makes a real difference over the life of a wardrobe. At our Maple Ridge facility, every load is sorted by colour and weight before it goes near a machine — it's not something we skip even on high-volume days, because the damage caused by skipping it compounds with every subsequent wash.

Why Colour Separation Matters

Dark garments release loose dye into wash water, particularly during the first few cycles after purchase. That dye doesn't necessarily stay in the machine — it can redeposit on lighter fabrics in the same load. The result is whites that look slightly grey or dingy over time, without any single wash obviously being the culprit.

It goes the other way too: light-coloured fabrics — especially cotton — can shed white lint that shows up as a visible film on dark garments. Keeping lights and darks separate prevents both problems at once.

The Colour Groups That Work for Most Households

Three groups cover most laundry situations: whites and very light colours, medium tones, and darks. If you want to simplify further, the most important split is lights versus darks. Medium colours — olive, navy, burgundy — generally behave more like darks in terms of dye bleeding, so grouping them with darks is the safer default when you're consolidating loads.

New deeply saturated items — fresh red, black, or neon garments — should go alone for the first two or three washes. Brand-new dyes are most likely to bleed, and a new red sock in a load of towels is one of the classic laundry disasters.

Why Weight Sorting Matters for Drying

Colour gets the most attention, but weight sorting is what makes drying work efficiently. Heavy items like jeans, towels, and hoodies take significantly longer to dry than lightweight T-shirts and underwear. Mixing them together means lighter items get over-dried and overheated while heavier items are still damp — which stresses the lighter fabrics and doesn't dry the heavier ones well either.

Washing heavy and light items separately also helps with the wash cycle itself. Different fabric weights need different agitation levels, and a machine loaded with a mix of dense denim and thin shirts doesn't optimally clean either.

Delicates Need Their Own Treatment

Anything with a hand-wash symbol or a delicate cycle instruction on the care label belongs in a separate load — washed in cool water on the gentlest cycle, ideally in a mesh bag. Mixing delicates with a regular cotton load can cause stretching, snagging, and pilling that's impossible to reverse.

Structured garments — blazers, shirts with fused collars, anything with interfacing — often do better with dry cleaning than machine washing regardless. If you're unsure, the care label is the authority.

One Practical System

Keep three bags or baskets near where clothes come off: lights, darks, and a third for delicates or dry-cleaning items. When a bag fills up, wash it. That's the entire system. It eliminates the sort-at-washing-time friction that causes most people to throw everything together when they're in a hurry.

Our team sorts every load before washing — book a pickup and skip the colour-bleed anxiety entirely.

Get started

The Laundry Brothers offers wash & fold and dry cleaning pickup across Greater Vancouver, seven days a week. See service areas →

Frequently asked questions

Do I really need to separate laundry every time?: At minimum, separate lights from darks every time. That prevents the most common problems — dinginess on whites and lint transfer on darks. Weight sorting matters less for small loads but improves results noticeably on larger ones.
Can I wash jeans with other dark clothes?: Yes, after the first few washes. New denim bleeds significantly and should be washed alone initially. Once the dye has stabilised across two or three washes, dark jeans can go with other dark garments.
Does sorting matter less with a cold wash?: Cold water reduces dye bleeding, but doesn't eliminate it. Sorting by colour is still the right habit even when washing cold.
What do I do with brightly coloured new items?: Wash new red, bright orange, and deeply saturated items alone for their first two or three washes. Brand-new saturated dyes are the highest risk for transfer onto other garments.
Should I turn dark garments inside out before washing?: Yes — turning dark garments inside out reduces surface abrasion, which is one of the main causes of fading over time. It also helps protect any printed graphics on T-shirts.