Laundry Frequency

Saturday seems to be my big cleaning and laundry day, if you could call making sure the necessities of life at least, are made suitable, for the week ahead, big. On Friday, the weather reporters were all saying Saturday would be a rainy day.  As often happens, the weather pattern changed, (I like to say weather pattern changed rather than get on the weather reporter bashing band wagon), and we had a gloriously sunny afternoon. I wanted to take advantage of the sun and cool breeze and get bedding washed and hung outside. I made the mistake of saying to DD#2, "Should we get your bed linens washed?", instead of "Strip your bed so we can wash the linens." Her response was , "No, they're still good." Now I love sleeping in fresh laundered and sun dried sheets.  It is truly one of life's simple pleasures. Her response though, pleasure factor aside, did get me wondering how frequently bed linens should be washed. Is there a health hazard for going too long?  Is over washing just needlessly wearing down expensive fibers? Besides making me wondering why we have so few sheet sets that we have to wash and dry the same day we change sheets, it got me wondering how frequent must other things be washed?

Conventional wisdom would say that the less you wash and dry and item, the more cost efficient upkeep will be. Less water, less soap, less electricity or gas if using a dryer or warm water for heating said water means the cost of doing the laundry itself is reduced. Wear and tear, it seems should be mitigated with fewer washings of the clothes or linens themselves.  We are not strangers to the sight and smell factor.  If it looks clean, and doesn't smell, it is good to go. So here is a simple poll. 

How often do the following items need to be washed?  The choices are: D-Daily (single use) T-Two to Three times  W-weekly and finally S-sight and Smell always rule.

Bed linens          D          T          W          S

Towels               D          T          W          S   

Jeans                 D          T          W          S        

Dress shirts        D          T          W          S  

T-shirts               D          T          W          S

Note the question was how often do the items need to be washed, not how often do they get washed in your home. I have my answers in my head, and we'll leave it with that they are not necessarily the same response for each question.