Sheets are like the jeans of your bed. People feel they can use them over and over without cleaning them; that fine layer of accumulation is just making them more comfortable, right? There are all sorts of microscopic reasons to throw your sheets in the machine — way, way more often than every three or four months. And sorry, freezing your bedding won’t work any better than it does with jeans. “People should wash their sheets at least once a week, more frequently if they are sick or if they are caring for children, pregnant women, or [the] elderly,” Robin Bechanko, Senior Microbiologist at NSF International, tells Digital Trends. A recent video titled “10 Disgusting Things That Live in Your Bed” highlighted a few reasons why you should be sanitizing your sheets: bed bugs, dust mites, mold. While you can put away the garlic-and-bile mix, as it’s unlikely you have MRSA in your bedroom, the mites are pretty ubiquitous. And that doesn’t even take into account the dead skin, drool, sweat, and pet dander that’s also coalescing in your linens.
Related: Clean your microwave in minutes with this simple, chemical-free technique To help de-germ your sheets, you should be washing them on the machine’s “hot” cycle. According the NSF’s certification protocols for allergen reduction, the washer’s water temperature has to reach 131 degrees Fahrenheit (55 degrees Celsius) for at least three minutes during the sanitation cycle. That’s just too hot for the dust mites, which are a trigger for many people’s allergies. It’s not just those critters that die off in the hot water, though. “Certification means that NSF scientists have tested the sanitization cycle to ensure they effectively reduce harmful bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa that can potentially build up in bed sheets if they go unwashed for a long period of time,” says Bechanko. Blasting your bedclothes with the highest setting in the dryer also lowers the germ count a bit. Of course, you should make sure your sheets can withstand the heat by checking the care instructions on the label.
If you’re worried about wear and tear, it might be time to invest in another set, so you don’t have to wash them as frequently. Remember that your sheets aren’t a visible force field either, so some of the gunk from your sheets is making its way to your mattress and pillows. Get some covers for them; those you don’t have to wash as often, but aim for something more like quarterly, as opposed to annually. Also consider what you’re putting into the machine. Color-safe bleach doesn’t have the same disinfecting properties as regular bleach, unfortunately. To kill any bacteria that are hanging around the washer, you can run a cycle without any clothes but with bleach. So, go home and do a load of laundry tonight. And maybe throw those jeans in, too.How to care for sheets and bedding: 8 mysteries solved From the confounding folding of fitted sheets to keeping pillowcases fresh, here’s how to love your bedding to ensure its longest life.We spend so much of our lives in bed, yet our sheets and bedding often get short shrift in the care department.
Partly, perhaps, because tending to them falls under the umbrella of tedious chores, but also because their proper care is imbued with some of the deeper mysteries that housekeeping has to offer: Folding fitted sheets, need I say more?But taking care of the things with which we dress our beds to extend their lives for as long as possible is important. “Conventional” cotton is one of the world’s most pesticide-intensive crops and so the less we consume there, the better; sustainable options may cost more and your wallet will appreciate some longevity, plus, getting the most out of our stuff is one of the simple basics of sustainable living.With that in mind, here's how to show your bedding some love.1. How often you wash your sheets is a matter of choice, and a topic of hot debate. Clean sheets feel great; frequent washing breaks down the fiber more quickly resulting in a shorter life and uses more resources. Find the right balance for you and then wash them in warm water, not hot (which can shrink the fibers).
For stains, use a natural bleaching agent, like Bio Kleen Oxygen Bleach. Tumble or line dry according to label instructions.2. Keeping sheets smelling fresh There’s nothing like taking sheets that you’re sure are clean out of storage, dressing the bed, and slipping into a musty-smelling cotton sandwich. Sheets get stale, generally due to lack of air circulation in the linen closet (or drawer or shelf or wherever you store them) – they need to breathe! And if there’s a speck of moisture with them, the problem is even worse. Make sure your sheets are bone dry before stowing them and be sure that your storage area has room so the bedding isn’t packed too tightly, and also has ventilation to get air circulation in there. You can also add some lavender to help offset dankness.3. To extend the life of your pillow and for better hygiene, use a zippered pillow protector that goes under the pillowcase – this will protect the heart of your pillow from allergens, and hair and body oils which can saturate the pillow.
Nobody wants to sleep on a body-oil sponge.Even protected with a cover, pillows should be washed twice yearly and the protectors once a month. Most pillows are machine washable – it will say on the label. Use liquid detergent (rather than powder to avoid residue), wash them in pairs to keep the washer balanced, and rinse them twice. For how to clean pillows with other types of fill, see: Do you know how to clean pillows?4. To dry down and feathers pillows, use the air cycle or the lowest heat setting you have; dry until they are completely dry and no clumps remain. (You don’t want moldy pillows.) For polyester pillows, use low heat. You can add a few tennis balls in the dryer to help fluff, but the dryer alone will likely fluff enough.5. I could try to describe this simple solution to one of life’s deeper conundrums, but after a few sentences of “fold this corner into that corner” I’m sure I’d lose you. So, instead, some visuals:6. As Blythe points out in How to Clean Your Mattress: "Cleaning your mattress – with baking soda for small spots or a steam cleaner for tougher grime – can calm your allergies by reducing dust mites, improve your health, and best of all, help you sleep better."