Tips: White clothes laundry and care of sheets

A young mother recently asked how to keep her lovely new white sheets white and fresh looking. I shared the following information. While I'm not a laundry expert, I am a Southern Lady-of-a-certain-age that has raised five wonderful children. Back in the day..... We had no dryer other than a clothes line strung out in the backyard and God's wonderful sunshine. Now I have a dryer and dearly love it. My sheets and whites are all nice and white and I do most (except the line drying of clothes) that I am sharing below.

There is nothing like good old sunshine to keep whites white. Of course, line drying is cumbersome and clothes can be a bit stiff.

For modern laundry I would suggest you always make certain nothing is washed with your white clothes. Only wash the white-white items. Not off white and no colors.

Use a good, quality detergent. Wash frequently. Perspiration stains don't show for awhile, but they get in there and do their damage creating stains that are nearly impossible to remove. Plus, perspiration that stays in clothes, sheets, and pillow cases long tends to rot fabric sooner.

Use bleach rarely.

The oxy detergents should help.

Tips on sheet care: 

1. Remember rotate, rotate, rotate. Top to bottom. Bottom to top. 
2. If drying sheets on a clothes line, do not fold them over the line. This causes more wear and tear on the sheet down the center. Put ends together and pin the corners and center of the hemmed edges to the clothes line. 
3. Wash pillow cases a bit more often for health reasons as well as the fact that hair and face oils are bad for their care as well as how they look and last.
4. Bleach is not very good if sheets have synthetic fibers as these tend to yellow when bleach is used.
5. If you have well water with minerals, BLEACH can interact with these minerals causing staining of general yellowing of fabric. 

Hope this helps a bit.