All other brands Washing Machines

Separating your laundry

Please make sure you follow these instructions fully. If you have any problems with carrying out this maintenance, please contact us.

Because your clothes are made from many different types of fabric and a range of colours, it is important that you separate the items you are going to be washing by their fabric and colour. Otherwise there is a good chance that you may damage clothes and other items being washed or cause colours to run in to different clothes.

Your washing machine will give you best results if it is loaded correctly and you separate your washing so that coloured clothing is separate from whites. Always take notice of the Laundry Care symbols on each item (for more information see the “Laundry care symbols” topic).

Always check your user manual for specific details on your own machine and always follow any washing instructions on the labels of your clothes, but the points below will help give you some general guidance.

1. You can sort washing in to loads by their colour. Separating your load of washing according to its colour will help make sure that washed items are not damaged by their coloured dyes running out during the wash.

As a general guide, these colours are generally safe to wash together:

  • White items: this load should be just white clothing and items which do not have any designs, patterns or coloured labels on them.
  • Coloured items: you should include items which are pastel coloured in this load, so colours like pink, lavender, light blue, light green and yellow. You can also put any white clothes which have designs, patterns or coloured labels in with this load as long as you follow any specific instructions on labels.
  • Dark clothes and other items: in this load, you can wash items which are grey, navy, red, dark purple, black and other similarly dark colours.

2. Or you can sort washing in to loads by their wash-care symbol. Separating your load of washing in this way can help your washing be more efficient as items needing the same wash-cycle setting can go in the same load.

  • Items with a ‘hot temperature wash’ recommendation can include cotton and coloured general hard-wearing fabric like towels and bed linen.
  • Items with a ‘medium temperature wash’ (30°C – 60°C) recommendation can include items needing more care (sometimes referred to as ‘Easy Care’) where the fabric may be made from different fibres like trousers and shirts.
  • Items with a ‘lower temperature wash’ (20°C – 40°C) recommendation can include your more delicate items and should be the wash for items like lingerie of high quality and some sports garments.
  • Items having a ‘hand wash’ recommendation (at temperatures around 10°C – 30°C) will include very delicate items like cashmere garments.
  • Always make sure that no items marked as ‘Do Not Wash’ go in your washing machine.