Chemistry question. Can you wash your clothes with bleach and then use vinegar in the rinse cycle safely?

I can’t imagine you could without smelling like something awful…..

Technically, you don’t want to wash your clothes with bleach. You want to wash them with a mild detergent and then use a bleaching agent to take out stubborn stains. There are two types of typical bleach: Chlorine and Oxygen. Chlorine should only be used on whites and oxygen can be used on all colors. Chlorine bleach is also the bleach type that you do not want to mix with other compounds, especially acids, like ammonia Read about that here.

I would not use vinegar in the rinse cycle unless you are completely certain that the chlorine has dissipated because the bleach cycle on a washer is generally right before the rinse. Common thought is that vinegar is too weak to react with the chlorine in household bleach but the better solution is to wash clothes twice using bleach the first time and then vinegar in the rinse the 2nd time.

Edit: Here is another source

Also, for what reason do you want to use vinegar? Odor removal?

My washer has an extra rinse cycle but I don’t know if the vinegar would go in the first rinse or the second rinse.

I wash only the “whites” (underwear, towels, dishcloths, dish towels, white socks, and towels I use instead of paper towels etc) in bleach to sterilize them.

One more little factoid, you are in no way sterilizing your linens when you use household bleach, unless you are using somewhere around half a gallon each time in water of at least 150 F, or water alone at over 180F. Household chlorine, if fresh, is probably less than 5% chlorine. Over time, heat and light reduce that amount and most household bleaches are being used at well under 5%.

In commercial laundries, if they seek to sanitize linen, they need to use a quaternary ammonium to do the sanitization. Even in a sanitized situation, the linen still can have germs. Sanitizing only means that the majority of germs are killed, usually about 80–90%. Disinfection is what you really want to seek. Disinfection means that 99.9 of all germs are killed.

More than you wanted to know, I’m sure…

So are you saying that I should not bother to try to sanitize my “whites” with bleach? Just was in hotwater with detergent (method) and rinse in vinegar (for fluffiness)?

Only use a bleach if you need to get stains out or for general whitening and brightening.

Why would you want to rinse your clothes in vineagar anyway?
(And yes, you seem a bit retentive about the need to sanitize your laundry)

@ivgr – have you ever gotten sick from E-Coli? I have… I only SANITIZE the stuff that could have and spread such things.

Lots of people use vinegar as an economical fabric softener.