Yes, you can wash scrubs with other clothes in most cases, but there are good reasons to keep them separate. The CDC notes that scrubs without blood or body fluid contamination carry roughly the same level of germs as regular street clothes, and standard home laundering removes that level of soil effectively. That said, if your scrubs were exposed to patients with known infections or visible contamination, washing them alone is the safer choice.
When Mixing Is Fine and When It’s Not
The key distinction is what your scrubs were exposed to during your shift. If you work in an administrative role, outpatient clinic, or setting where you didn’t come into contact with blood, bodily fluids, or patients with drug-resistant infections, your scrubs aren’t meaningfully dirtier than the shirt you wore to the grocery store. Tossing them in with your regular laundry is perfectly reasonable.
If your scrubs were visibly soiled or you worked closely with patients carrying infections like MRSA or C. diff, treat them differently. A systematic review published in Health SA Gesondheid recommends keeping contaminated scrubs separate from other clothing, washing them in their own load, and washing your hands immediately after loading them into the machine. These aren’t extreme precautions. They’re simple habits that reduce the already low risk of spreading bacteria to household items.
The Actual Risk of Cross-Contamination
Healthcare workers often worry about transferring hospital pathogens to family members’ clothing in the wash. The CDC’s assessment is reassuring: while healthcare textiles can carry significant numbers of bacteria, documented cases of infections linked to home laundering are rare enough that the overall risk is considered negligible. The combination of detergent, water agitation, and dilution does most of the heavy lifting in removing microorganisms, even without special disinfection steps.
That said, “negligible” isn’t zero. Bacteria like MRSA and Pseudomonas can survive on fabric, and if your household includes someone who is immunocompromised, elderly, or has open wounds, erring on the side of separate loads makes sense.
How to Wash Scrubs Effectively
Whether you wash scrubs alone or with other items, the basics matter more than the sorting. Use warm water for most scrub fabrics. Polyester and polyester-cotton blends handle warm cycles well without shrinking. Pure cotton scrubs can shrink with high heat, so check the care label. Scrubs with a high percentage of spandex do best on a cold, gentle cycle.
For everyday cleaning, regular laundry detergent is sufficient. If you want an extra layer of disinfection, you have a few options:
- Chlorine bleach is the gold standard for sanitizing laundry, but it will fade colored scrubs over time. It works best on whites.
- Oxygen bleach with an activator (found in products like OxiClean) produces a compound called peracetic acid during the wash, which is a more powerful disinfectant than plain oxygen bleach alone.
- Laundry sanitizer products (like Lysol Laundry Sanitizer) use ammonium-based compounds that fight bacteria, fungi, and some viruses. These go in the rinse cycle, not with detergent, and the items need to soak in the solution for about 15 minutes to be effective.
Dry scrubs on medium to high heat when the fabric allows it. Heat from the dryer provides an additional step in reducing any remaining bacteria. If you’re air-drying spandex-blend scrubs, make sure they dry completely before storing them, since damp fabric is a friendlier environment for microorganisms.
Handling Scrubs Before They Hit the Washer
What you do between taking scrubs off and washing them matters as much as the wash itself. Don’t toss dirty scrubs on the bed or couch. Put them directly into a dedicated laundry bag or hamper, ideally one you can wipe down. If your workplace allows you to change before leaving, that’s ideal since it keeps whatever you picked up during your shift out of your car and home.
When loading contaminated scrubs into the machine, avoid pushing your hands and arms into the water while they’re washing. After the cycle finishes, wipe down the inside of the washing machine, especially around the lid or door seal. Then run any subsequent loads normally. If you’re washing scrubs as the last load of the day, this cleanup step keeps the machine ready for the next use without carrying anything over.
Protecting Your Scrubs Long-Term
Scrubs take a beating from frequent washing, so fabric care affects how long they last. Polyester scrubs are the most durable: wrinkle-resistant, quick-drying, and resistant to both shrinking and stretching. Polyester-cotton blends hold their color and shape well but can develop pilling over many wash cycles. Pure cotton is comfortable and breathable but fades faster and is more prone to shrinking.
If you do wash scrubs with other clothes, sort by color. Scrub dyes, especially in cotton fabrics, can bleed onto lighter items. Washing dark scrubs with dark clothes and light scrubs with whites avoids the most common complaint people have about mixed loads. Turning scrubs inside out before washing also helps preserve color and reduces friction on the outer fabric.
Avoid fabric softener on polyester-spandex blends, as it can coat the fibers and reduce their moisture-wicking ability. For polyester scrubs specifically, a dryer sheet on low heat or a quick line-dry works well without compromising the fabric.