Considering my obsession with clothing, you would think that I am a careful laundry-doer.  Like, separating all my lights and darks and unmentionables from my mentionables.

Truth is, I have never once separated lights and darks or colours from other colours.  In my whole life.  My laundry is divided into a ”Stuff that I Care About” pile, and a “Stuff that I Don’t Give a Shit if it Gets Ruined” pile.  Then I just shove those piles into the laundry and wash them separately.

I’ve never had a problem.  Ever.

Until Wednesday.

I bought a bunch of cute stuff at the Goodwill near work, and was SO excited about it.  A gorgeous silk maxi dress in a taupe-y pattern, this GREAT red and white striped knit oversized maxi dress from Rodier, a Paris line, and this great, fuchsia pink military dress.  I almost wasn’t going to get the military dress… I remember waiting in line and thinking

“This dress is REALLY pink.  Like retina-burning pink.” 

Then, I came home and threw them all in the wash together.  Of course, that fuschia pink dress DYED EVERYTHING BRIGHT PINK.

Lesson One: It’s probably a good idea to separate your brights from your non-brights.

Ya.  My Rodier dress was now striped red and hot pink.  But not in a good “I’m trying to clash” way.  In a “cheap dress from Suzy Shier” way.

My gorgeous pink silk maxi dress was now bright pink and taupe.  Which wouldn’t be that bad if it wasn’t a huge, flowing maxi dress… it was totally overwhelming, like a pink silk monster, consuming my body in pink-ness.

Lesson Two: You probably shouldn’t wash delicate things 8 times in a row in super hot water.

So, I tried to wash out the dye.  Over and over and over and over and over.  NB – this is NOT a good idea.

This used to be an OVERSIZED MAXI DRESS:

Now it is a child’s dress.

This used to NOT BE RIPPED IN SHREDS:

Yeah.  That gorgeous silk maxi dress couldn’t handle all the vigorous, repeated hot washes… when I took it out of the machine, it disintegrated in my hands.  The fabric just melted:

It used to be in perfect condition.  I feel like a murderer.

This is the pink-dye explosion culprit.  After all of that horror… it turns out that I really like it… so it wasn’t all a waste: