If you’re like a lot of people, you wear blue jeans…a lot. You probably have several pairs of blue jeans in different types of washes. That means the blue is darker on some jeans, lighter on others. You’ve got your go-to jeans, your skinny jeans, your hanging out jeans, different pairs for different moods and different outfits. But eventually, your jeans get dirty. That means you have to wash them. And this is the moment when all sorts of questions fill your mind. Questions like…can you wash light blue jeans with whites? The trouble is, washing blue jeans isn’t like doing other types of laundry. Do you know how to wash jeans, what to wash them with and when you should be washing them?
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The Rules of Washing Jeans
First of all, when should you wash your jeans? Experts say that jeans are not like every other type of clothing. That, in fact, you can and should wear your jeans three or four times before you wash them. This is because washing jeans can cause them to lose their shape and does weaken the denim over time. But if you have worn your jeans several times or if they have something on them, they do need to be washed.
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Just remember that for the most part, you will be washing your jeans only rarely. When you do, however, you need to know how to wash them the right way and what you can wash them with.
The First Wash
When you’re washing a pair of jeans for the very first time, they should be washed alone with no other items of clothing. This is because jeans, more than any other type of clothing, tend to bleed the first time they’re washed and you don’t want the color to end up on other clothing items that are in the wash. Once the jeans have been washed for the first time, they don’t have to be washed alone with no other clothing in the machine.
Jeans that are black or colorful tend to fade faster than lighter wash denim colors. To help prevent fading, add about one-fourth of a cup of standard table salt to the water. Wait until the washer fills up, pause the wash cycle and add the salt. This helps prevent color fading. You can continue doing this when washing colorful jeans and black jeans to maintain the color for as long as possible.
Always check the care label on jeans before washing them and follow the instructions here above all other tips and instructions. For the most part, jeans can be washed the same way but sometimes, there are special instructions so it’s a good idea to check.
How to Wash Jeans
Turn jeans inside-out before washing them. This prevents abrasion on the surface of the jeans that can cause fraying, fading and other issues. Zip up the zippers and snap up the snaps where present. This will prevent snaps and zippers from snagging other parts of the jeans and causing tears and abrasions. This also helps jeans maintain their shape.
Use warm or cold water, unless the care instructions direct otherwise, to wash jeans. The wash cycle you choose is up to you. Some experts recommend using the gentle cycle to avoid excess twisting and pulling of the denim that could cause jeans to lose their shape. However, jeans are built to be durable, so using the permanent press cycle shouldn’t harm or rip the fabric in any way.
Jeans should be hung up to dry. The heat of the dryer can cause shrinkage and cause the fabric of the jeans to break down and weaken. If you must dry jeans in the dryer, use a low setting. Remove jeans from the dryer as promptly as possible.
You shouldn’t ever wash more than four pairs of jeans in the same machine at a time, not even if they’re all the same color. This is just too much weight for the machine to handle. Denim is a thick, heavy material, especially when it’s wet.
Overloading the washing machine can cause it to be thrown off balance and cause problems with the machine that prevents it from working properly.
Washing Jeans with Other Clothes
But what about the big question? Can you wash jeans wth other clothing items? Can you wash light blue jeans with whites?
Well, it depends. Jeans are made with heavy fabric, metal rivets and zippers. You don’t want to wash a pair of jeans with light, delicate fabrics, such as that satiny tank top or that lightweight dress. The jeans can actually cause damage to more delicate fabrics because the denim is so much heavier than these other items.
However, you can still wash your jeans with other items that aren’t delicate. Towels and other heavy items of clothing can be washed with blue jeans. Of course, you still need to observe the traditional rules of sorting laundry by washing light colors with light colors and dark colors with dark colors. This is done to prevent color bleeding, in which the color of one item “bleeds” onto a lighter colored item. When colors bleed onto light colored articles, the light clothing can look dirty even when it’s not.
Sheets and bed linens should be washed separately from all other items and pieces of clothing. These items are often made with delicate fabrics that can suffer from abrasions when they rub up against other materials that may be rougher, such as denim.
…But what about washing whites? Aren’t whites a whole different breed of laundry that must be treated differently from everything else? Whites are often treated like they are separate and special. There are different rules for whites. Obviously, you can’t wash anything with whites but whites, including light colored jeans.
Right?
Washing Whites
Everyone’s seen the gag where someone is washing a load of whites and a bright red item gets accidentally mixed into the bunch, which results in the entire load of whites being turned pink. Everyone knows that your white laundry is some kind of super delicate thing that has to be treated in all kinds of special ways. The thing is, it’s really not altogether true.
With modern clothing, this whole dyeing whites though washing thing is really unlikely to happen. Dyeing techniques have become pretty advanced and these days, there is little to no color bleeding in clothing when it is washed. Clothing typically only bleeds the first one to three times it is ever washed, though usually little to no bleeding will happen anyway. Jeans bleed more than other clothing but except in very dark washes and heavily-colored items, bleeding is pretty rare.
That said, white clothing is a little bit different from colored clothing. You want your whites to stay looking very bright white. Dull white will look dirty even when the clothing is clean. The reason that white clothing is usually washed all by itself is so that bleach may be added, which whitens and brightens whites to keep them from looking dull and dingy. Non-chlorine bleach is safe to use even on most colored clothing, however, so even this practice isn’t strictly necessary.
Some experts still advise washing whites separately from all colored clothing, even light colored materials, in order to maintain the brightness of the white. But if you’re careful about using bleach and practice good washing techniques in general, you can get away with washing light colored jeans with whites. The trick to keeping whites bright is to wash them in cold water and to use a short wash cycle. You don’t want whites to soak in the water with other clothing, as this could lead to color bleeding if bleeding is going to happen.
The great thing about white clothing is that even if it does go through a wash cycle still looking dingy or suffers from color bleeding, you can always wash the whites again with bleach to get them looking bright again. Clothing can be soaked in bleach if the white is looking seriously dingy. Let it sit in bleachy water for about 10 to 20 minutes and that should do the trick for most whites.
Washing Jeans and Whites
So when it comes to the rules of laundry and all the techniques for washing jeans and all the rules of washing whites, can you wash light colored jeans with whites or is this going to throw the planets out of alignment and lead to a catastrophic chain of events that, ultimately, will unmake all of human existence?
Most of the time, it’s not going to be that serious. But as everyone knows, if you discover some sort of ancient artifact that specifically warns you against washing jeans and whites, heed the advice so you don’t turn into some kind of supervillain. Otherwise, it’s probably going to be okay.
You can actually wash your light colored blue jeans with white clothing if you want to without causing a great amount of harm in almost all cases. Most of the time, nothing bad will happen as long as you don’t mix your most delicate lacy satin item with your heaviest, roughest blue jeans. Color bleeding isn’t very likely and usually, the whites will turn out just fine and look nice and clean. But if you want to be extra cautious and you want to keep your blue jeans lasting as long as possible, wash them alone or with other heavy fabrics in warm or cool water and wash your whites alone in cold water. Don’t dry your jeans in the machine and wash them only as needed.
If you practice good laundry habits, your clothing will last longer and look better longer. But even if you don’t, you probably still won’t do a lot of damage to your clothing. Modern clothing is well-made with careful manufacturing processes and advanced dyeing techniques to resist wearing, fraying and color bleeding. In many cases, clothing goes out of style, you get tired of wearing it or it stops fitting you well before it gets too worn out or damaged by machine washing to be enjoyed anymore. With the exception of a few favorite pieces, you probably just stop wearing certain items well before they’ve suffered too many cycles through the washing machine.
Mixing light colored blue jeans and whites isn’t likely to do any real damage to either item and sometimes, you just don’t have the time or the energy to do lots of different loads of laundry. It’s not the most perfect way to launder clothing according to all the experts but that’s okay. You don’t have to be a laundry expert to look great in your light colored jeans and your white top, right? And when you just need an outfit to be ready on time, wash away.
Sources:
Good Housekeeping – How to Wash Jeans the Right Way, According to Cleaning and Textile Experts
How to Clean Stuff – How to Wash Jeans
LeafTV – How to Wash Different Types of Jeans
LifeSavvy – Do You Really Need to Separate Whites and Colors in the Laundry?
Silver Bobbin – How To Wash White Clothes With Color On Them
Whirlpool – Learn important tips for washing different color clothes
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