Washing underwear with tea towels?

ripplyuk

My doctor has recently advised me that underwear should always be washed at 60°C or above. I already wash cleaning cloths and tea towels at 60 or 90 so I was planning to chuck the underwear in with those but I mentioned this to a friend and she was horrified. She said that underwear should never be washed with anything else. Does everyone else follow this rule? Is it really disgusting to mix socks/pants with tea towels? I assumed the high temperature mixed with the detergent would kill any bugs. 

The problem is that I don’t have enough underwear to do a full wash and it feels wasteful to run the washing machine with hardly anything in it. I can’t do the underwear with my bedlinen because it’s all white. 

Brie

I'm with you on this one.  I bundle up stuff into type as much as possible so socks and knickers versus nice shirts and teatowels.  But teatowels go in with the sheets etc working on the principle that I don't get up close and personal with my teatowels as much as I do my pillow case etc.  

And I never wash anything above 30 normally.  

There is, of course, hand washing but that's a right faff so only gets done sometimes when on holiday and running short.

Yorkie006

I wash underwear with other clothes, bedding etc. Never had any issues.
The only time I'd consider washing underwear separately is if the person had a STI or other infectious disease (skin infection, nail fungus etc) that could be passed on.

Admiral_Barbarossa

My kegs are always washed at 60C

sleepymans

I wash practically everything at 30c. Every couple months I wash bed linen at 60c but not every time. I tend to put underwear and other clothes together, tea towels towels, flannels and bed linen in a different load. I’m puzzled why a doctor should recommend such a hot wash for underwear and to be honest all my bras and silk underwear and nighties are hand washed. I would never wash the rest above 30/40 as it wouldn’t last long!!

elsien

Far simpler solution -  don’t use teatowels.
I don’t find them particularly hygienic anyway unless you wash them after each use, so I just leave my crocks to air dry.

ETA - there’s lots of online references to the NHS advising washing high risk items at temperatures of 60°, but anyone working within the NHS, or having laundry done as a patient is more to be with immuno compromised people or at higher risk of infection themselves. Ordinarily healthy people who have been happily washing their knickers at 40° for years with no real effect probably don’t need to worry.

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/washing-machines/article/washing-machine-temperature-guide-aLiyf2p96y4d

Longwalker

@ripplyuk, I was given that advice years ago and have stuck to it since and never had Thrush again. I was getting recurrent bouts of it and finally a consultant advised putting the knickers in a hot wash. As she says, they grow it at 30oC in Petri dishes so it needs the heat to kill it

I stick mine in with the bedding or towels or tea towels , @60oC nothing is going to be spreading

I do have about 20 pairs of knickers though

I also dont use tea towels to dry up either, I use them as oven cloths of a cloth to wipe down and a clean one daily 

 

Brie

This all puts me in mind of the news piece I heard some time back that said that all underwear should be replaced at least once every 6 months.  I think the person being interviewed may very well have been a medico type who worked for a large nationwide retailer well known for it's knickers. 

Around the same time I heard a piece of saving water, the environment, energy and the person being interviewed said that not only do we shower/bath too frequently we also wash our clothes more often than they need and should just air things out between uses.  Mentioned this to a friend who was horrified about wearing a pair of jeans 2 days in a row.  Washing them after every time they were worn boggled me! 

maman

I'd be more concerned for your underwear than the tea towels! 🤣

I don't know what sort of underwear you have but much of mine would hate being washed at a very high temperature. I'd check the labels if I were you. You're likely to damage the elasticity and the temperature seems very high for coloured clothes. 

kboss2010

ripplyuk said:

My doctor has recently advised me that underwear should always be washed at 60°C or above. I already wash cleaning cloths and tea towels at 60 or 90 so I was planning to chuck the underwear in with those but I mentioned this to a friend and she was horrified. She said that underwear should never be washed with anything else. Does everyone else follow this rule? Is it really disgusting to mix socks/pants with tea towels? I assumed the high temperature mixed with the detergent would kill any bugs. 

The problem is that I don’t have enough underwear to do a full wash and it feels wasteful to run the washing machine with hardly anything in it. I can’t do the underwear with my bedlinen because it’s all white. 

Your friend is worried over nothing tbh. It’s probably a thing they were taught as a kid by their own overly-anxious parents and they’ve just absorbed it.

Washing at 60 is more than sufficient to kill bacteria in clothes.

I wash items by size so it saves me time  time separating and hanging out loads, there’s nothing my executive function hates more than pulling socks out of pillowcases and untangling bras from trousers, it’s petty but it drives me insane!

I wash by size as follows:

small - underwear and socks

medium - tea towels and clothes

large - bath towels and bedding

but I couldn’t care less if I washed my underwear or socks with tea towels.

mark_cycling00

This sounds a bit like how people sterilise baby bottles but babies put everything they can reach into their mouths...

Unless you change your pants after every loo trip (and energetic walk) you're wearing "dirty" pants for most of the day, so your clean pants time is only a few hours anyway.

Everyone has thrush and all sorts of other bacteria. Your body adapts and produces enough "good" bacteria to keep things in balance. Take antibiotics or experience other illnesses and the thrush might start to win but it's not due to your pants.

On this site you'll find that most people have dishwashers set below 60° and don't do a weekly 60+ cycle, thousands have set their hot water below 60° and yet there isn't a legionnaires outbreak.