Doing your own laundry without turning everything pink

What the box says

Add detergent. Add clothes. Press start. Enjoy fresh, clean laundry.

The box has never met a red hoodie.

What you will actually need

• The washer and dryer. Look for an "HE" logo on the washer. If it's there, the machine needs HE detergent, which makes fewer suds.
• Detergent. Liquid, powder or pods all work.
• Two or three baskets, or at least two piles on the floor that you promise not to mix.
• Stain remover, spray or stick.
• Color catcher sheets. Optional, but they're cheap insurance. They soak up loose dye in the water before it lands on your socks.
• Hangers or a drying rack for anything that shouldn't go in the dryer.
• A timer on your phone. For the timer.
• The thing everybody forgets: checking that there's actually detergent in the jug. Every first-timer finds it empty after the clothes are already in the machine. Check before you start. If it's low, tell whoever does the shopping before it runs out, not after.

The steps

1. Read the label. It's inside the collar or along a side seam. A tub means it can be machine washed. Dots in the tub mean temperature: one dot is cold, more dots means warmer. A hand in the tub means hand wash. An X through anything means don't. A square with a circle inside means tumble dry, and the dots tell you how hot. A plain circle means dry clean only.

Some labels are faded, cut off or written by somebody who hates you. When in doubt, cold water and low heat.

2. Empty every pocket. Pens, gum, lip balm, earbuds, receipts, tissues.

One tissue turns into ten thousand white flakes stuck to every dark thing you own. Lip balm in the dryer leaves grease spots that don't come out on the next wash. Earbuds don't survive. They never survive.

3. Sort. This is the whole game.

• Whites and light colors together.
• Darks together: navy, black, gray, dark jeans.
• Reds, bright colors and anything new in their own load for the first few washes. New jeans and new red shirts bleed the most.
• Towels away from T-shirts if you can, because towels shed lint onto everything.

Pink laundry always comes from exactly one item. I once washed one red hoodie with my dad's white work shirts. He wore them anyway, all week, and told everybody at his office his son was learning a life skill. My grandmother sorted laundry like she was defusing a bomb. She never wore a pink sock in her life. She was right.

4. Prep the clothes. Zip zippers so the teeth don't snag other things. Close hook-and-loop straps. Turn jeans, dark tees and anything with a printed graphic inside out. That keeps the color and the print from fading. Spray stains now and let the spray sit a few minutes before washing.

5. Load it. Put clothes in loosely. Stop at about three-quarters full. They need room to tumble, or they don't get clean.

If you use a pod, put it in the empty drum first, then the clothes on top. Not in the dispenser drawer. If you use liquid, fill to the line on the cap. More soap doesn't mean cleaner. It means sticky clothes and leftover residue.

Keep pods closed and put up high. To a small child they look like candy, and they're poisonous.

6. Pick the settings. Cold water for almost everything. It stops dye from running and stops shrinking. Warm or hot only for whites, towels and sheets, and only if the label allows it. Use the normal cycle for everyday clothes, delicate for anything thin or stretchy, and heavy duty for towels and jeans.

7. Set a timer, and move the load when it ends.

Wet clothes left in the washer overnight start to smell sour. Leave them two days and they smell like a gym bag that's been through something.

8. Check stains before the dryer. Still there? Don't dry it. Heat sets a stain for good. Treat it again and rewash. While you're at it, pull out anything labeled hang dry, plus your nicer shirts.

9. Clean the lint screen. Every load, before you start the dryer. Lint catches fire easily, and a clogged screen is a real fire risk.

10. Dry it. Medium or low heat for most clothes. High heat for towels and sheets. Don't over-dry. Take it out as soon as it stops, and fold or hang it right away. That's the difference between a shirt and a crumpled shirt.

If you leave it in the dryer for three days, you didn't do laundry. You built a storage unit.

11. Put it away. All the way, in drawers and on hangers. Not on the chair. Then wipe the detergent drip off the machine, and if somebody else's load is sitting finished in the dryer, fold it for them. Leaving the laundry room better than you found it's how people start trusting you with bigger stuff. More on that in Reliability is built in the house you already live in.

Where it goes wrong

It turned pink. Don't put it in the dryer, because heat locks the color in. Rewash right away in cold water with a color-run remover from the laundry aisle, or soak whites in an oxygen bleach. Chlorine bleach is for white cotton only, and only if the label allows it. Never mix bleach with ammonia or any other cleaner. The fumes are dangerous. Caught while it's still wet, pink usually comes out. Caught after drying, maybe not.

It shrank. Usually permanent. Your little brother just got a new shirt. Next time, use cold water and low heat, and hang dry wool sweaters and anything that fits perfectly right now.

It smells worse than before. It sat wet too long, or the washer was too full to rinse properly. Rewash with less in the load. Skip fabric softener on athletic gear, because it coats the fabric and traps odor. Don't let practice clothes ferment in your bag. And if it's a front-loader, leave the door open after you finish so the machine dries out.

Blue streaks everywhere. A pen. Before you run the dryer, check the drum for ink and wipe it out. Otherwise the next person's load gets it too.

When to call a pro

• "Dry clean only" means exactly that. Suits, leather, suede and nice wool go to a dry cleaner. If grad is coming up, read Your first suit, six weeks before grad before anything gets near a washing machine.
• A serious stain on something that matters. Take it to a dry cleaner quickly and tell them exactly what the stain is.
• The machine leaks, won't drain, smells like burning, or trips the breaker. Turn it off, stay out of any water near it, and tell a parent. Repairs are for a technician.
• You smell gas near a gas dryer. It smells like rotten eggs. Don't flip switches or start anything. Get everyone out of the house and call the gas company or 911 from outside.
• Moving, installing or re-venting a dryer is pro work. Gas lines and vent rules are set by local codes, and those vary by area.

Nobody throws a party for a load of laundry that came out right. That's the point. Do it well enough and nobody ever notices, except the guy whose shirts stay white.