Don’t you hate it when you have ½ a load of towels and 1/2 a load of clothes to wash? You’ve already looked around the house for every lost sock and old forgotten washcloth, but everything else is clean.
Now, you have to wait until your family makes more laundry to have full laundry loads. But would it be alright to wash clothing and towels together?
You can wash some towels and clothing together. Do not put your delicates in the washer with the towels, however. It is better to wash heavier fabrics, like jeans and sweatshirts, with towels. When washing clothes and towels together, set the washer to use cool or cold water.
You also have the option of choosing a small load of laundry on your washing machine. Smart washers and smart dryers can detect the amount of clothing in the machine and adjust the water and speed automatically.
Can You Wash Towels With Clothes?
Washing different fabrics together can be tricky. Washing the wrong fabrics in a single load of laundry can ruin the threads and fray the edges. Also, tiny pieces of lint can cling to other fabrics, which can take forever to remove.
And finally, you do not want the bacteria from the towels and clothes to mix with your clothing. The washer will eradicate many types of bacteria, but your clothing will not be 100% bacteria-free.
Therefore, we wash clothes with other clothes, and then towels, washcloths, and hand towels in their own load. But if you know the rules of washing, you can wash towels and clothing together.
You can wash towels and clothes together. However, you cannot wash delicate clothing, like underwear, bras, boxers, mittens, and towels together. It is better to wash tougher fabrics with towels.
What Should You Not Wash Towels With?
There are several other things you should not wash together with towels, including:
- Do not wash towels with clothes that haven’t been washed in the washer yet. Brand-new red or black clothing will have dye from the factory embedded in the fabric.
- When you wash the red clothing, the excess dye will leak into the water. Any light-colored towels washed with red fabric will be dyed red.
- Do not wash your cold-water clothing with hot-water towels.
- Do not wash your towels and scrap fabrics together. A piece of scrap fabric is a piece of fabric that has been repurposed for cleaning. Instead of wasting paper towels and using your nice washcloths and hand towels, you’ll use a piece of scrap fabric to wipe the windows or wipe counters, tables, stoves, the dashboard of your car and other surfaces.
- The towels, washcloths, and hand towels you use on your body should not be washed with fabrics designated for cleaning.
Note About Soiled Fabrics
It is fine to wash towels with clothes if the clothing and towels are slightly dirty or just used. But towels and clothes that are filthy, soaked, and muddy must be washed in separate loads. You don’t want the dust or mud from a towel to cling to your clothing’s fabric.
Actually, if your towels are filthy, it would be better to rinse them in the garden. You can do this by hanging filthy towels and fabrics over a clothesline and spraying them with the garden hose.
You also have the option of placing the filthy towels in a bucket of water and hand scrubbing them. By rinsing the filth out of the dirty fabrics first, the filth will not cake itself onto the insides of the washing machine.
It is critical to remove the dirt and particles from clothing and towels because dirt and debris inside the washer can clog the mechanical components and the drains.
What Happens if You Wash Clothes and Towels Together?
The bacteria on your clothing and the bacteria on your towels will mix and will mix into the fabrics. If you wash towels and clothing on hot water, then the bacteria are less likely to survive.
But cold-water clothes should not be washed in hot water, as they will shrink.
Also, the number of towels and the number of clothes in the washer matter!
Do not overload the washer with an equal number of towels and clothing in the same washing load. It is better to have mostly towels with a few articles of clothing or one or two towels in a load of clothing.
When loading the washer with towels and clothes, place the towels on the bottom and then place the clothes on top of the towels.
Heavier thicker items should always be on the bottom and lighter items should be on top of those items. This will prevent the washer from getting off balance.
What Can I Wash Together With Towels?
It is safe to wash clothing that can be washed in hot water, as towels need to be washed in hot water to become cleaned adequately.
Most towels are washed at warm or hot temperatures. Clothing washed in cold and cool temperatures should not be washed with hot water towels.
Can You Put Towels in the Same Dryer as Clothes?
Technically, you can, but it’s not a good idea to dry towels and clothing in the same dryer at the same time.
The reason you should not dry most clothing with towels is that the towels will take a while to dry, and the thinner fabrics of the clothing will burn.
Drying thick sweaters, jeans, and heavy coats with towels is fine because these fabrics dry as slowly as thick towels.
Drying blankets and towels together in a single load is fine as well as they dry at the same rate. If you have a load of washcloths and small hand towels, then you can dry them in the dryer with your clothing. Since these fabrics are not as thick as towels, they will dry quickly.
Thinner bed fabrics, like pillowcases and sheets, will dry faster than towels. Do not place them in the dryer with towels. Drying clothes and sheets and pillowcases together in a single load is fine.
Conclusion to If You Can Wash Towels With Clothes
Avoid washing delicate clothing with your towels and hand towels. Also, do not wash cold water clothing with your hot water towels. You can wash hot water towels in cold water, but it is better to wash towels in hot water because the hot water will kill more bacteria. Only wash hot water clothes with your towels.
When drying a load of clothing and towels, dry the clothes in the dryer and dry the towels in a separate cycle. The clothes will not take as long as the towels to dry. You can also dry the towels out on the line outside while the clothes are in the dryer.
