How Often You Should Wash Your Sheets (And How to Get Them Really Clean)
If there are noticeable stains on your sheets, we recommend pretreating them with a stain remover like Zout, which will work for most food, dirt, and bodily fluids. Follow the directions on the bottle, which typically involve saturating the stained area, pinching the fabric on either side of the stain, and rubbing the fabric sides together to help the cleaner penetrate into the sheet fabric. You can also spray the stained area after you strip the sheets off your bed, and then just toss them into your dirty-clothes hamper until you’re ready to wash them.
For tougher stains, like blood, coffee, or wine (we’re not above sipping a glass in bed while watching trashy TV), soak the area with OxiClean. Then leave it to penetrate overnight, before putting your sheets in the washing machine. Dish soap works well to remove grease stains from food — use it the same way you would any other spot remover.
Stains don’t set until they get baked through a hot drying cycle. So before you move a load to the dryer, check pretreated stains after every wash, and repeat the spot treatment and cleaning cycle if needed.
