Can you wash period underwear or pads with other clothes?
Absolutely! Yes you can! and you should, if like most of us, you’re looking to keep your energy bills as low as possible. Who isn’t?
There’s a few guidelines to follow when washing your reusables, and my blog on how to wash reusable period pads or period underwear explains in greater detail.
As a summary, there are 2 basic rules to remember when washing reusables:
Don’t use fabric conditioner or softener
Wash at the temperature advised by the manufacturer
Your reusables are an initial investment, but they will save you money over many years.
So how can you follow the above rules, as well as incorporating them into your routine without adding to both your current workload, and energy bills?
Can I really wash without fabric conditioner?
This is a bit of a strange idea to get your head around, but you can. Fabric conditioner isn’t necessary to get your clothes clean, it’s purely for fragrance and softness.
In reality, your favourite Lenor, Comfort, or supermarket equivalent, coats the fabric fibres in silicon to make your clothes feel softer. Even more eco/naturally derived laundry products such as Ecover and Smoll; or refill varieties such as Fill or Minimal; contain a natural silicon equivalent in the aim of doing a similar job.
Silicon binds around the fabric fibres of your reusables, and this prevents the hidden absorbent layers doing their job of absorbing, which is not what you want for your cloth pads and period pants.
It is possible, and cheaper, to go without fabric conditioner. So this would be most ideal approach.
However…when you consider that fabric conditioner is only used from the drawer during the final rinse, you can make your machine work for you.
If you’re not ready to go without softener, there are some alternatives:
The best tip I have is to put your reusables in a mesh bag, so that you can find them easily. Then load your machine adding your detergent only, skipping the conditioner for now. When the cycle is done, then you can simply pull out the mesh bag. Then add your softener to the drawer and set your machine to do one last extra rinse and spin cycle for the extra fragrance (if possible reduce the spin speed to it’s minimum on your initial cycle, and then put it back up on the extra rinse).
Include your reusables in a softener free load such as towels (or nappies). Towels are also required to absorb liquid and are therefore best washed without fabric conditioner.
What about wash temperatures?
As a family of four, we easily generate enough laundry to wash darks, lights, reds and whites all in separate loads. And until recently I always put our whites on a 60 degree cycle to keep them bright.
But I’m now washing whites at 40 degrees in order to economise, as well as including our toddlers’ night nappies (which get a rinse and pre-wash first) and it’s actually working ok.
I don’t see our whites getting grey. And I can take the nappies out using a mesh bag in the same way above, and then do a final rinse and spin with conditioner added.
This has to be the most economical way to wash or clean cloth nappies, and it works for reusable period protection too.
My reusable pads are included in this wash, and then I put my period pants in with the darks wash, again in a mesh bag. The only difference is my pads are rinsed by hand after use and wrung out to remove the worst of the blood.
Check the labels
The key is to know your advised wash temperature for your reusable, although I would say 40 degrees is an adequate temperature for pretty much all brands and I use this for all my laundry now.
Arguably 30 degrees is even more economical and better for the environment, so it’s worth seeing if this works for you.
Other ways to economise
Washing any reusable containing PUL at 60 degrees shortens it’s life, so the best strategy is to begin low.
Modern detergents are incredibly concentrated and efficient, and therefore you don’t need to have to boil or soak your reusables. This is old fashioned practice and should be avoided because it will do more harm than good.
Supermarket own brand detergents are perfectly adequate for cleaning any reusable. In my own experience powder cleans best and is often the best value option.
Air drying is also the best way to dry any reusable. Tumble drying can actually damage PUL and elastics, which is another reason you are perfectly justified in trying to reduce the energy cost.
Help guides
For more straight forward practical tips on how to switch to reusables without adding to your existing workload, have a read of my further articles/blogs: