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The Wash Guide

The Journal

Laundry, explained without the lecture.

Ask how often to wash anything and you will get five answers, most of them confident and few of them sourced. This is an attempt at a sixth: what the evidence supports, where it runs out, and what to do in between.

Eight pieces in three sections, every number sourced or called reasoning.

29 sources citedLast updated 10 September 2026

Latest9 SeptemberWhy white shirts go yellow under the armsIt is not your sweat, which is almost certainly clear. It is the antiperspirant, working on your shirt instead of on your skin.Stains6 min7 sourcesNewA man in a cream linen shirt leaning against a plaster wall in a bright room, one sleeve rolled

The Why

The founding piece: what the wash is for, and why most of the work happens somewhere else.

  1. The WhyMost of laundry happens between washes.The wash is the smallest part of looking after clothes. What you do in the days between decides how often you need one.4 minA shirt hung over the back of a chair with jeans and a folded tee on the seat, blind-light striping the wall behind

How Often

The answer first, then the argument. Six intervals, each with its evidence, and the schedule that holds them.

The whole schedule
BedsheetsWeeklyPillowsTwice a yearif it can be washedJeansWhen they smell or sagGym clothesEvery wearTowelsEvery 3 or 4 usesBrasEvery 2 to 3 wears
  1. How OftenHow often should you actually wash your bedsheets?Weekly is one of the better-supported numbers in laundry. Two that people repeat are not, including one of ours.Weekly5 min1 sourceWarm stone linen rumpled into dunes, one bold fold crossing the frame
  2. How OftenHow often should you actually wash your pillows?Half of them should never be submerged, and the frightening statistics behind the advice turn out to have no study under them.Twice a year, if it can be washed5 min4 sourcesPillows piled against a headboard, pale pink cases and one in sage linen, with a brown and a dusty-pink velvet cushion in front
  3. How OftenEditor’s pickHow often should you actually wash your jeans?There is no honest number, and the three camps who offer you one are each answering a different question from the one you asked.When they smell or sag10 min7 sourcesLayers of dark indigo denim with frayed hems crossing the frame as ridges
  4. How OftenHow often should you actually wash your gym clothes?Every time, and not because of germs. The smell is an oil, the fabric holds on to it, and the wash never quite gets it all out.Every wear6 min5 sourcesUpdated 10 SepFolded dark gym clothes, marl and ribbed cuffs layered on a wooden bench
  5. How OftenHow often should you actually wash your towels?Less often than the scary numbers suggest, and it depends far more on how the towel dries than on how often you have used it.Every 3 or 4 uses6 min4 sourcesA pale towel folded over the rung of a wooden ladder against a plaster wall, low sun raking across it, the rim of a bath at the left
  6. How OftenHow often should you actually wash your bras?The interval is the easy half. What decides whether a bra still fits in a year is whether it gets a day off between wears.Every 2 to 3 wears5 min1 sourceA cream lace bra lying under a scatter of pink, purple and yellow petals, soft-focused on warm ground

Stains

What a mark is made of decides how it comes out. The chemistry, without the lecture.

  1. StainsWhy white shirts go yellow under the armsIt is not your sweat, which is almost certainly clear. It is the antiperspirant, working on your shirt instead of on your skin.6 min7 sourcesNewA man in a cream linen shirt leaning against a plaster wall in a bright room, one sleeve rolled

That is the Journal. The other two things here are a decoder for every symbol on a care label and a calculator for the dose, which works out what the load in front of you actually needs.

A hand holding a phone showing The Wash Guide at the open detergent drawer of a washing machine, in low evening light

The app

The Companion in your pocket.

The Journal is the reading. The app is the doing: every schedule, the care label decoded, and a dose for the bottle you actually own. Free on Android, and no account to start.

Get it on Google Play

On iPhone

Tell me when iOS lands. One email the day it arrives, and that is the only reason we will ever use your address.

The guidance is free. PRO carries the record and the choreography: schedules, allowances, and the household’s own reading of the machine.

Your cupboard
Every bottle you own, from a catalogue stocked for more than twenty markets, the US and Brazil to Japan and the Nordics. Anywhere else, add your own in seconds.
Machine care
When it needs a maintenance wash, how many loads since the last clean, and what your water is doing to it.
The Household Hub
A shared cupboard, washes assigned and settled fairly, and a little friendly rivalry to keep things moving.