There's nothing better than sliding into a bed covered in freshly washed sheets, but getting to that end-of-day treat certainly takes effort. Avoid these common missteps to ensure you get a great night's sleep on laundry day.Sheets don't wear like your gym shorts or favorite jeans, but you do spend quite a bit of time in them. And night after night, germs, sweat, and body oils accumulate quickly."The longest you should wait before changing out your sheets is two weeks," says Carolyn Forte, director of the Cleaning Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute. "Weekly is even better.""If there are no stains, there's no need pretreat the sheets," says Forte. "But it's always a good idea to check pillowcases for makeup residue. A prewash stain remover like Shout Advanced Gel can help get any spots out."RELATED: How to Remove Any Makeup Stain »It can be tempting to dump all of your family's bedding in one load, but you'll need to do a couple to get the job done right."Sheets needs to circulate to get clean," says Forte.
"Today's enormous washers can probably hold several sets, but you should never cram them in. And if your washer has an agitator in the middle, don't wrap the sheets around it. This can cause them to wrinkle or tear. Instead, lay them in separately without wrapping them."Choosing a heavy-duty cycle isn't necessary (unless your sheets are a serious mess)."It's fine to wash sheets on the normal, regular, or colors cycle; they will still get clean." says Forte. "These options are gentler and shorter than heavy-duty and (depending on the machine) will cool water gradually for less wrinkling."You should also choose a setting with a cleaning cycle that uses the hottest water safe for the sheets' fabric (check the care tag). "The hotter the water, the more germs you kill," says Forte.Bedding might take a little longer to dry than a regular load of clothes, but leaving sheets in the dryer longer "just in case" is what can cause them to shrink."Over-drying is definitely a problem," says Forte. "Its best to tumble dry sheets on low heat for the shortest time possible (and yes, this could take some trial and error to get right).
This minimizes shrinkage and helps reduce wrinkling, too."Not all linens are created equally, so it's best to keep very different loads separate to avoid over-drying issues. "Sheets dry faster than towels, so when the sheets are dry the towels will likely still be wet," says Forte.If you're aiming to combine loads, Forte says it's probably OK to put some light cotton fabrics in with sheets, but towels are problematic.TELL US: What's your trick for making laundry day faster?• 5 Big Mistakes You Make Cleaning Windows• 4 Smart Fixes for Scratchy Bath Towels• The Best Way to Clean Grimy Grout How to: Get whiter-than-white sheets Save for a glass of wine, nothing beckons like a bed of crisp white linens at day’s end. But the invitation falters when your sheets have seen better, brighter days. Sweat, body oils and skin care products can stick to the threads of linens, lending a yellow hue as they accumulate over time. We show you how to keep your How to wash your pillows to keep them fresh and clean
How to keep duvets fresh How to: Wash shower curtain liners Problem: Yellowing bed linens Put down the bleach, sister. Even though chlorine bleach is likely your go-to for heavy duty whitening, it can react with body oils to make whites more, not less, yellow. eco-friendly household cleaners that are safe to use on a regular basis. When laundering your bed linens, add half a cup of baking soda with your detergent at the beginning of the wash cycle. Then, at the start of the rinse cycle, pour in half a cup of white vinegar (don’t worry; that distinct odour will rinse out). These two natural whiteners also have a softening effect, so you can skip the fabric softener. For an extra whitening boost, hang your linens to dry in the sun. Sunlight has bleaching capabilities and won’t set stains like the dryer does. Just be sure to bring in the laundry after it dries, since the sun can rot the fibres. For serious whitening jobs, try these bleach alternatives.
Harnessing the power of various sodium compounds, these fresh powders get the job done without harsh chemicals. They’re great to add in your washing machine or for pre-soaking. (From left to right) 1 20 Mule Team Borax Nature’s Freshener deodorizer. 3 Pre-treater Strip It! DIY project: Gold pendant light Tour this Vancouver home's modern eclectic look. Natalie Chong's chic condo A fashionista's walk-in closet gets a much-needed makeover.Avoid very hot temperatures when washing and drying; Use mild detergent (such as Wisk or Arm & Hammer dye-free formula) and wait until it’s diluted before putting sheets in the washer. Undiluted detergents can discolor fabric. And don’t overdo the detergent: If it isn’t completely rinsed out, sheets will feel stiff. Use half the manufacturer's recommended amount, and add one cup of white vinegar to the rinse water to remove all traces of detergent. Avoid brighteners and other bleaching agents; they weaken and discolor fibers.
To brighten whites, add 1/4 cup lemon juice to the wash cycle instead of bleach. Dry on the low or medium heat setting; overdrying sheets weakens fibers and bakes off finishes. Store laundered, completely dry sheets in a dry, cool place away from direct sunlight. Keep three sets of sheets for each bed and rotate weekly. To keep sets together and the linen closet neat, store each set in a matching pillowcase.Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She'll be here every other week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Well, hey, thanks so much for taking my little poll the other day! It was … not actually as bad as it might have been. A plurality of you, 37 percent, are changing your sheets every week or every other week, which is joymaking news. Once-a-month changers make up 29 percent of respondents, and the group that's going at least a month without putting clean sheets on the bed constitutes a slightly larger share of you, at a combined 34 percent.
If I'm being really honest, I had faith in you. I read your letters, so I know that you're not actually as gross as people insist you are. And to the extent that this means anything to you, I do spend a lot of time defending men, and Deadspin readers in particular, against accusations of slovenliness.I've been doing this job for a while now, and I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty that cleanliness isn't really a gendered construct, so let's get something important out of the way first: Yeah, sure, dudes are gross. But so are ladies. There's really not a huge need, from my perspective at least, to get into a shit-slinging contest over which gender is filthier. Plus, as you might imagine, shit-slinging contests fill me with dread.Instead of slinging shit at each other, fun though that may be for you, let's just get those filthy sheets off your bed, shall we? Oh, you would like to know why? I will tell you.Um, well for one, they smell. Then there's also the fact that they're covered in sweat, drool, dead skin, the oil that your body excretes constantly, and your/other people's sexual fluids.
Also you know how sometimes you sneak a cookie into bed while you're watching Coach reruns? That cookie left crumbs behind, oh yes it did. And critters tend to take the presence of those crumbs as an open invitation to join you in your bedspace.We should also address the existence of dust mites in your bedding. And they feed off of your dead skin cells. Changing your sheets on the regular will help keep them under control, which is a good thing to know, especially if you've got allergies. Since we're on the topic of controlling things, if you're prone to acne you'll definitely want to be vigilant about putting fresh sheets on your bed at regular intervals. Sheets with oily buildup will contribute to breakouts. If you can't manage to change the entire set of sheets, changing only the pillowcases will still help on that front (unless your acne crops up on your chest or back). And finally, the most compelling reason I can give you for changing the bedclothes is just that slipping in between a fresh set of sheets feels pretty great.
As I'm fond of saying, two of the most important things that we do in life take place between the sheets: Watching The Sopranos and eating Totino's Pizza Rolls sleep and sex. If you value those things, it's a nice practice to treat the space in which they happen with a bit of reverence. Having good, clean sheets is a pretty easy way to do something nice for yourself.I'm truly not here to tell you to wash your sheets at designated intervals. Because it's not my business how often you wash them. Do I sleep in them? What I will do, however, is give you some generally accepted guidelines for how often to change/wash your bedclothes. Because people like that, I find? And also because some of us got that kind of information from our parents or guardians while we were growing up and some didn't. And then even some of us unto whom those lessons were imparted went ahead and forgot things.You will, of course, want to weigh any personal considerations. Such as: Do you sleep at home every night?
Do you have easy access to laundry facilities? Do you have more than one set of sheets? Do you shower before you get into bed at night? Do you sleep naked? Do you sleep alone or with a partner? Do you sleep with more than one partner? Do you not want Partner #1 to know about Partner #2 (and #3 and #4 and #5, I suppose. Hey, good for you!) Do you give a fig about any of this? Do you have a friend? (Does he have a big coat, too?) What I'm saying here is that these are not tablets brought down from Sinai and you can and should do what's right for you. Once Every Two Weeks: Totally AcceptableOnce a Month: That's Fine. Once Every Six Weeks: DiceyMore Than Two Months: [CLUTCHES PEARLS] Generally speaking, sheets can be laundered in hot or warm water with regular detergent. A laundry booster like OxiClean or Borax, used in addition to detergent, will help cut through the oils and skins and other such things that constitute buildup on sheets. Sheets should be dried thoroughly before they're put back on the bed, on either a medium or high heat setting.
Line drying is also perfectly fine, and actually the sunshine will help keep white sheets bright, bright white. Which is a handy thing to know if you've got white linens and a line-drying facility. You should definitely wash pillows and comforters, for many of the same reasons you'll want to wash your sheets. They definitely smell musty. They definitely are full of dust mites. And you know how there are all those weird brown stains on your pillows? That's from your drool, killer. You should check the care tag on the pillows because there are all manner of fillings that require different modes of handling, but more often than not you'll be able to toss them in the washing machine on a cold water setting and dry them on a low heat setting. The same goes for comforters and duvets—you may need to hit a laundromat for the use of a large capacity machine if you have a machine at home that's not big enough to fit oversized items.If you've got throw blankets on your bed, those should also be washed a few times a year according to the care tag directions.
If you've been sick, curled up, and moaning under your blankie you'll also want to be sure to launder it once you've recovered. Maybe this should be our next poll? This is actually one I think I'm scared to ask but … do you make your bed in the morning? I think you should. It's a nice thing to come home to a made bed! It is also a good thing to do if you experience any kind of sleep disorder—the ritual of turning down a bed in the evening signals to your body that it's time to prepare for sleep. I mean, it won't cure insomnia, because that would be too easy and oh God I have that middle-of-the-night insomnia and it's crazy-making, but bedtime rituals do help. Additionally, if you find yourself frequently overwhelmed by clutter in your bedroom or just overwhelmed by life in general, making your bed will provide you with an easy way to bring a small amount of order into your world.You don't have to do this! But as I've mentioned, I've been at this job for quite some time now and I have emails and comments and tweets from a no-joke-huge number of people who started making their beds at my suggestion telling me what a difference it's made in their lives.