Could I make my own 'Colourcatchers' ?

morganlefay

I used to sort my washes by colour and only do a wash for, say, reds and then a separate one for blues, whites etc. It took several days to amass enough for a wash and sometimes I just did a half-empty wash (feeling very guilty.) Now I do them all together (except whites) but I use a colourcatcher, and so far have had no colour disasters. But they aren't cheap - has anyone had a go at making their own ? I wondered if small bits of old white cotton T shirt, or bits of white towelling would work - anyone tried this ?

sooz

No idea about making your own colourcatcher. But I don't bother seperating colours. Particularly if you've washed the item before. I just sort them by light or dark. So red, pink, green, brown, blue & black etc all go in together. Whites go with anything lighter than pink, so yellow, beige, sand etc. The only items I get confused by are striped

23rdspiral

sooz wrote: »

No idea about making your own colourcatcher. But I don't bother seperating colours. Particularly if you've washed the item before. I just sort them by light or dark. So red, pink, green, brown, blue & black etc all go in together. Whites go with anything lighter than pink, so yellow, beige, sand etc. The only items I get confused by are striped

ditto - though some blacks i know are more risky (karate jacket in particular), so sometimes there's a just blacks wash.

valk_scot

Ditto from me too. My usual sort is whites + very pale, blacks plus very dark and a coloured wash when necessary. They all go in at 40`C with the same powder dose so it's not like I'm boiling the whites.

anguk

Same here, I do whites/lights, colours and darks/blacks. The only time I do anything separate is when my DD gets anything dark pink or purply coloured and I'll hand wash them the first couple of times to see if the colour runs.

flutterbyuk25

I just wash everything together! My parents always did when I lived at home. As a single person living on my own I wouldn never build up enough washing to do darks and lights.

The only things I wouldn't just chuck in are brand new dark jeans (I'd wash them separatly a few times first as they are prone to running) and white shirts if I wore them (I don't!)

x

rosieben

I just do lights and darks; if I'm not sure if a new item will run I would wash it separately first time. I always do a separate hot wash for t-towels/kitchen towels/dishcloths.

No need for colour catchers unless you know something runs in the wash in which case I'd just wash it separately! another case of a must-have product designed to make us spend more money

Tootsiepops

Hi, what i do with my colour-catchers, is cut each one into three, and they work just aswell, ive been doing this for a couple of months now, with no problems, HTH

kippers

I do a:

*dark wash ie black/navyreally dark things
*pure white wash
*colours wash which i put in all other colours

If i have fairly new things with deep colours ie new jeans or the new bright red sports socks my DD1 has in her school uniform them i do wash them separately for a few washes so they don't don't run all over my other things.

PasturesNew

I live alone so have problems with mixing colours/whites. The first wash is the worst one for anything new, so if I have something new (that's not white) I will do it's first wash with darker items (in case).

After that there are three washes:
- whites
- lights
- darks

The shortfalls tend to be in the whites, so I deliberately bought a couple of white towels and a mainly white quilt set - and so I use these to make up the whites loads.

allydowd

If you go to this link you can get a colour catcher free:

http://www.colour-catcher.co.uk/free_sample.php

You also get a 35p off voucher for your next purchase.