For many young adults, college is the first time they have to do their laundry by themselves. It can be challenging to know what to buy, how often to do laundry and what exactly you need to do. While lugging your laundry home every two weeks may seem easier, the best time to do laundry in college is weekly.
With this guide to washing clothes, doing your own laundry will be a breeze, and you can also learn more about understanding college students’ laundry habits. You’ll always have clean clothes to wear, know the meaning of permanent press settings and learn if you can dry whites and colors together. You’ll be a pro in the campus laundry room!
The most important part of doing laundry is preparation. To get the best results, you need to sort your clothes and learn which pieces of clothing need which setting on the machine.
Don’t Dry Lights and Darks Together – Sort Your Clothes
Many students know you’re supposed to sort by color but still choose not to. If you want your clothes to last longer, you need to know how to separate laundry by color and by material:
Colors: Sort your clothes into at least two piles. One should be for whites and lights, the other for darks and colors. Washing them together will make the whites less white over time. You shouldn’t dry whites and colors together, either.
Heavy and light: If you’ve ever gotten a clean article of clothing out of the washer or dryer and noticed a new hole, it could be due to a sorting problem. Heavy clothes and items with zippers or rough fixtures can get caught on lightweight materials and rip them.
Laundry Symbols
You should also consider your delicate items and clothing with special washing instructions. All your clothing should have a tag telling you how the manufacturer recommends you wash that item. Three main types of laundry symbols and variations of each type indicate how you should wash, bleach and dry that article of clothing.
When doing your laundry, look for these symbols:
Wash symbols: These symbols look like glasses filled with water. They tell you which setting on the machine to use—normal, permanent press, or delicate—or whether to hand wash or dry clean your clothes.
What Is Permanent Press? This is a washer or dryer cycle that helps reduce wrinkles. It uses a mix of warm and cold water to de-wrinkle laundry, making it a great choice for delicate fibers.
Bleach symbols: This triangle symbol indicates whether you can use any bleach, only non-chlorine bleach or no bleach at all.
Dry symbols: Dry symbols look like a square with a circle inside. They indicate which setting you should dry your clothes on — normal, permanent press, delicate or no dryer at all.
When putting your clothes in the washing machine, remember these guidelines before you hit that “Start” button:
Laundry detergent: Not all college laundry rooms supply detergent, so make sure you have your own. You can purchase regular liquid or convenient single-use detergent pods.
Water temperature: Check the machine’s temperature settings. You can wash most clothes with warm water, but use cooler water with dark and bright colors or delicate fabrics to avoid color bleeding.
Overloading the machine: Be careful to avoid overloading machines. You want to ensure enough room in the machine for everything to move around once it’s filled with water, or your clothes may not get as clean.
What Does Permanent Press Mean?
An important back-to-school laundry tip is knowing which wash cycle is best for your clothing. While it may be tempting to use a normal wash cycle for all your clothes to make the laundry process more convenient, choosing permanent press can protect your clothes, especially items at a higher risk of wrinkling, fading or shrinking.
Regarding your specific washing machine, a permanent press cycle may be under a casual or wrinkle control cycle. During this cycle, the washing machine will use warm water most of the wash cycle and then switch to cold water as it enters the rinse cycle. For most washers, a permanent press cycle lasts around 30 minutes using a gentler agitation than a normal wash.
Another benefit of choosing permanent press over a normal wash setting is that the final spin cycle is not as fast, which helps to prevent the wet clothes from pressing in on each other, reducing the creation of wrinkles.
Dry Your Clothes
Time to get those freshly washed clothes dry and ready to wear! Before you throw your clothes in the dryer, remember these helpful drying tips:
Check the lint trap: Avoid potential fire hazards by always checking the dryer’s lint trap before use! Clearing the lint trap also keeps your clothes from coming out covered in fuzz and can even help your clothes dry faster.
Dryer sheets are your friends. They reduce static build-up in clothes, add softness to laundry, and can also add a pleasant, fresh scent.
Get a collapsible drying rack: If you don’t feel like dealing with the hassle of waiting for a dryer to open up or have clothes that aren’t safe for the dryer, consider buying a collapsible drying rack. You can neatly air-dry garments without constantly taking up valuable floor space in your dorm or apartment.
Different Dryer Settings
Drying your clothes with the correct setting can ensure they look great long after you purchase them. Most dryers have a few different cycle settings, including:
Air dry or air fluff: An air dry or air fluff setting does not use heat and uses room-temperature air from the surrounding area to dry your clothes. This cycle is best for wool, silk, or clothing with embellishments.
Delicate or gentle: The delicate or gentle cycle uses low heat to keep clothing such as activewear safe from melting or stretching under high heat.
Permanent press or wrinkle resistant: A permanent press setting is great for items like slacks and outerwear. It uses medium heat to dry clothes without causing damage or creating wrinkles.
Regular: A regular dryer cycle can be known by several different names, like automatic or timed dry. Since a regular dryer setting uses the highest heating temperature, it is ideal for items made from cotton and other robust fabrics.
Steam cycle: Many newer dryers feature a steam setting for removing wrinkles from dry clothes or refreshing clothes with a slight odor. For example, you can use this cycle to freshen up a sweater that may have been sitting in your closet.
Don’t Forget to Fold!
The final step of the laundry process is the most annoying and tedious for many people, but trust us, it’s necessary! When you leave your clothes crumpled in your laundry basket after taking them out of the dryer, they will likely become wrinkled. Why undo all your hard work washing them by letting them go unfolded?
You can choose from several different folding methods. Have a lot of clothes and not enough space? The rolling technique is popular for saving space in closets and suitcases. Want to ensure you don’t get any wrinkles in your new top? Put it straight onto a hanger when you’re unloading the dryer. If you want precision, you can invest in portable folding stations that give your clothes consistent, uniform folds.
Laundry Tips for College Students
These additional helpful tips will help you become a pro at doing laundry while away at school. Following these tips can help you avoid mishaps in your campus laundry room.
Separate colors: As we mentioned earlier, If you wash them together, the whites start to lose their brightness. Drying them together can lead to color bleeding, so we don’t recommend mixing both.
Check your pockets: It’s a good habit to always check your pockets before throwing your clothes in the machine. You could find something as harmless as loose change or something more harmful to your clothes, like lip balm.
Wash your towels separately: Towels are generally heavier and bulkier than other laundry items, so we recommend you wash them separately to avoid damaging your more delicate items.
Turn clothes inside out: Turning your clothes inside out before putting them in the washer will decrease the chances of color fading. Additionally, it’ll help defend your clothes against friction from rubbing against other garments.
Wash new clothes: New articles of clothing can contain dispersed dyes, which can cause allergic contact dermatitis. The best way to avoid this or lessen the chances of a reaction is to wash your new clothes before wearing them to eliminate any excess dye still present.
Use a washing bag: If you’re worried about your more delicate clothing, consider purchasing a washing bag, which can prevent your clothes from experiencing as much agitation in the washing machine.
How Often Should You Do Laundry in College?
The exact number of times you should do laundry each week or month in college will vary. Generally, you should plan to complete your laundry at least once a week.
In particular, it’s important to wash your bedsheets regularly to rid them of skin cells, sweat, and oils that collect there. You sleep in your bed every night for hours at a time, leaving plenty of opportunities for gunk to accumulate. Washing your sheets and pillowcases regularly keeps them clean.
Best Laundry Detergent for College Students
We highly recommend investing in pod detergents because of their convenience. Regular liquid or powder detergents can be a pain when you have to lug those giant containers and dirty clothes into your dorm’s laundry room. Plus, you’re more likely to make a mess if you accidentally drop the container or overfill the measuring cup.
You can wash your clothes confidently with detergent pods, knowing you’re using just the right amount. Check out our guide on saving money while doing laundry.
Get More Laundry Help With Us
College life can be a whirlwind, and we understand that you’ve got better things to do than sit in your dorm’s laundry room, wondering how long your laundry will take. Caldwell & Gregory is proud to offer even more helpful tips on how to do laundry in college like washing clothes and the drying process. While this guide focuses on campus laundry, many of the same principles apply to apartment laundry rooms. See our apartment laundry guide for more information on etiquette and best practices.
