What temperature should you wash clothes at?

The quick guide, load by load

Temperature choice matters less than it did twenty years ago because detergents have improved enormously in cold water. But it still matters for some loads, and here's how we set it day to day.

• Everyday clothes, darks and brights: cold or 30°C
• Business shirts and lightly worn work wear: 30–40°C
• Sheets and pillowcases: 40°C to lift body oils
• Towels, tea towels and bath mats: 40–60°C
• Underwear and socks: 40°C
• Sickness in the house, nappies, pet bedding: 60°C where the label allows
• Wool, silk and delicates: cold, on the gentlest cycle

When is cold water genuinely enough?

For clothes that are worn once and aren't visibly dirty, cold water with a decent liquid detergent cleans well and protects the garment. Cold washing keeps dyes where they belong, stops elastane breaking down early, and prevents the gradual shrinking that warm cycles cause in cotton knits. If your washing routine is mostly office wear and casual clothes, cold can be your default without any downside you'll notice.

The exception is greasy soiling. Body oils, cooking splatter and skin products need some warmth to dissolve, which is why pillowcases and collars washed cold for months slowly go dull and yellow even though they look clean coming out of the machine.

When warm and hot water earn their keep

At 40°C detergent enzymes work near their best and oils start to shift properly. That's why we run sheets and towels warm: they carry the most skin oil in the house, and warm washing keeps them fresh rather than just rearranging the problem.

60°C is about hygiene rather than cleaning. If someone's had gastro, if you wash cloth nappies, or if towels have developed a musty smell that survives normal washing, a hot wash resets things. Check the label first; hot water is also where shrinkage and colour loss happen fastest, so it's a tool for specific jobs, not a default.

Does cold washing really save money?

Yes, because heating water is the biggest energy cost of most wash cycles; the drum motor uses comparatively little. Washing the everyday loads cold and reserving warm water for linen and towels is the easy middle ground: you get the hygiene where it counts and the savings everywhere else.

When you book a Pacco Pacco wash, dry and fold pickup you can tell us your temperature preferences, cold-only, warm for whites, whatever your clothes are used to, and we'll follow them each time.