Washing in cold water? Is this madness?!!

[Indadhanu]

I only wash in cold. Full stop. Nappies, clothes, towels, sheets etc... all cold. No stains here, the sun bleaches them out.

[sasha]

Ok, well that's proof enough for me! They're on a cold wash as I type!

Now my only other concern is drying when it rains - the sun is fantastic at bleaching stains and I know it's doing a good job of killing germs... but what about drying them undercover when it's raining? We don't have a dryer and in all the info I've read, the nappies are dried in dryers in winter. Do you think I should wash them in hot if they won't be dried in the sun? (not really an issue for the next 6 months or so, I imagine, but I like to be prepared!)

[Megan]

Cold wash for everything here too including nappies. No problems at all.

[*charmalea*]

over time the sun will bleach out all the stains , panadol stains take a bit longer to come out but eventually they will .

or if it its bugging you that much , spot treat the stain with a paste of detergent , i use eco store and it works well .

[nicjay]

I always wash in cold, would only do a hot wash if we had a gastro bug. I also dry undercover when raining and yep sometimes the stains don't come right out when I do this, but I find that they do come out when I next wash. I use them with a little staining anyway because they are still clean KWIM?

[Indadhanu]

I just dry under cover on a clothes airer inside in the rain, I don't use a dryer for my nappies including in winter, except if I think they could use a bit of softening, and even then its only 5-10 minutes once they're dry, but that's a rare occassion... haven't done it in months...

Oh, yeah gastro is definitely a hot wash, but thats it.

[*EJ*]

I've always washed in cold also, pre-rinse, then a heavy or light wash (varies as to the state of the nappies).

Over the cooler months our dryer got a bit of a work out but i'm loving this warmer weather, some nappies can dry within a number of hours

[sasha]

Cheers for that - it's the 'germs' rather than the stains that were bothering me really (I'm not really a pristine-white kind of gal ).

I'd definitely wash on hot if we had any bugs going around, as well.

[LimeSlice]

get yourself some tea tree oil or lavender oil and put a few drops in the rinse cycle or your mix it with water in your fabric softener dispenser in the washer, will kill everything