How to Wash White Laundry to Keep It Looking Brilliant

Make sure you pre-treat all stains on white clothes before putting them into the washer.

Keep your white clothing crisp and bright. Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock

In the same way that there are rules in life for things such as how to drive a car, how to cook a meal, or how to manage your money, there are a few simple rules for how to wash white clothes to keep them looking brilliant and clean. And if they happen to get a bit dull, gray, or yellowed, there are rules for how to restore the brightness of washable white clothing, too.

Separate

Sort dirty laundry carefully. Never allow items of color—any color, no matter how pale—to sneak into a load of white laundry. Washing white clothes separately prevents the dye from colored items from bleeding and transferring to white things. Even though the effect may not be noticeable at first, this is how white things begin their journey to become dull and dingy eventually.

Treat Stains

Make sure you pre-treat all stains on white clothes before putting them into the washer. This is your window of opportunity to make sure they will be completely removed—before they hit the washer and dryer.

Want to know the best stain remover? It’s there under your kitchen sink: Blue Dawn Ultra dishwashing liquid. Fill a squeeze bottle, and keep it in the laundry room. When you see a stain, hit it with a bit of full-strength Blue Dawn Ultra, and then launder as usual. It works like magic on most stains on both white and colored items. Just make sure you keep the whites and colors in separate loads!

Avoid Overcrowding

White things need their space to get really clean and white. Suppose the washer is packed to capacity. That leaves precious little room between these items for the water to move powerfully enough to flush away the soil that the detergent will have loosened. When left to dry on fabric, that left-in residue will leave those items looking dull and, eventually, gray.