How do you wash your scrubs?

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I start nursing school in August and just bought my scrubs. This is probably silly, but I noticed on the tags that they are machine wash cold. Is this the standard for scrubs or is it the particular brand that I bought? Washing in hot water would kill any bacteria brought home from the hospital, but I don't want to ruin my scrubs by washing in hot. My scrubs are navy, so I can't add bleach, either. How do you wash your scrubs?

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As soon as I get home, I stand right in the laundry room, strip them off and straight into the washer in HOT water. They are tough and can handle it. I think hot water is absolutely necessary-these things are toxic!

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

I turn mine inside out and wash them in hot water. Hot water won't ruin them ;)

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Hot water will not "ruin" them but it will fade the colors much quicker than if washed in cold or warm.

My mindset is, I don't wash my hands in scalding water and bleach, I don't wash my hair with scalding water and bleach and all the "yuckies" are killed with nothing more than a shower and soap, my uniform has no more and no less 'yuckies" on them than my skin or hair.

I wash my scrubs in warm water with regular laundry detergent.

The concensus is good handwashing with warm water and soap kills almost all the things you come in contact with, so I'm thinking warm water and laundry detergent will suffice for my scrubs..just my 0.02 cents.

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This is true, CT Pixie. I never thought of it like that. I certainly don't bleach my skin or hair. :p

Thanks for the advice everyone!

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You can actually add a small amount of bleach to the laundry. It will kill germs and if you only use a little, it won't bleach the scrubs. I put a little bit of Clorox is almost every load of laundry I wash.

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.
The concensus is good handwashing with warm water and soap kills almost all the things you come in contact with
Well, not really. The soap is simply a surfactant which, along with the friction of rubbing your hands together, dislodges the nasties into the effluent (water). To kill the bugs on your skin, you either need to douse them with a bacteriocide (e.g. alcohol) or mechanically lyse them (that is, rub the bejeebers out of your dry hands).

The mechanical shear in a washing machine, especially a full one, is not particularly high and I'd question its efficacy in removing bacteria. The concentration of detergent is also much, much lower. Think of it this way: There are a great many things that I can easily wash off of my skin with soap and enough rubbing which will not come out of clothing.

Me, I bleach my dark-colored scrubs every time... Yeah, they're fading ever so slightly but it's worth it to me to know that I'm not contaminating my home and my family's laundry facilities.

I'd be really interested to culture the washing machines of some folks who don't bleach their scrubs... especially if they don't use hot water.

I'd love to see a real study on this issue so that we could all have some data from which to make our decisions.

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As soon as I get home, I stand right in the laundry room, strip them off and straight into the washer in HOT water. They are tough and can handle it. I think hot water is absolutely necessary-these things are toxic!

I do the same exact thing!

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.

As soon as I get home, I stand right in the laundry room, strip them off and straight into the washer in HOT water. They are tough and can handle it. I think hot water is absolutely necessary-these things are toxic!

I do the same exact thing! I do the same exact thing!
I'm not even willing to have 'em in my car... I change at the hospital and deposit the dirty scrubs in a dedicated, plastic-lined gym bag. I wear my "hospital shoes" out to the car where they're deposited into a plastic case before I get into the car.

I'm not a germophobe in general but I don't like hospital germs.

I'm not at all sure that the water from your water heater is hot enough to get a sure kill unless you've got it cranked all the way up... even then...

I like bleach.

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Specializes in NICU Level III.

In cold water with the rest of my darks. I'm in NICU so I don't get as many nasties on me unless it's from the elbows down.

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One tidbit of wisdom- most of us in my program gained weight during the program or the scrubs um.,...shrunk? lol be prepared to buy bigger ones just in case! :) At the end of senior year some of the girls were sqeezing into clearly too small scrubs which is not a good look. I ended up buying new ones. Washed em in HOT!

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One tidbit of wisdom- most of us in my program gained weight during the program or the scrubs um.,...shrunk? lol be prepared to buy bigger ones just in case! :) At the end of senior year some of the girls were sqeezing into clearly too small scrubs which is not a good look. I ended up buying new ones. Washed em in HOT!

I wish someone would tell my sister in law this. She wears her scrubs as tight as she can get them!

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