Different Ways to Fold Clothes: Traditional, Retail-Style, Rolling and Hanging

Doing laundry is one of the chores that most people do not enjoy doing, and there are so many different ways to do each of the steps as well. When it comes to folding and putting away clothes, there are also several ways to do this chore, with each having its own advantages and disadvantages. The options for ways of folding and organizing clothes include; traditional folding, retail-style folding, rolling and hanging. Each of the types of clothing management techniques has its advantages, disadvantages and works best for different types of clothing.

Traditional folding is when a person simply folds a shirt so that the sleeves are together and when jeans are just folded so that the legs wear flat along the seams of the legs. This way of folding clothes is fast and effective but it does not cause a crease in the legs of pants or the front of shirts cannot always be seen. This is most likely the way that a person is taught to fold clothes when they were young by a parent and is the way that most people will always fold their clothing.

Another option for folding clothes is retail style folding. This is how clothes are folded at retail stores. The sleeves of shirts are first folded so that they lay on backside of the shirt then the sides of the shirt are folded toward the center of the shirt and the tail of the shirt is folded up. When a shirt is folded in this way and laid in a drawer in a tapered manner the front of all the shirts can easily be seen when the drawer is opened. Pants are folded in a way that they are folded in half and then the bottoms of the pant legs folded up and then the tops folded toward the first fold so that the pockets are on the outside of the jeans. When pants are folded like this they can be easily identified when in a drawer and will need minimum pressing to look nice.

Rolling is a great option if a person has a lot of t-shirts or other simple shirts. When rolling a shirt a person folds the sleeves to the back of the shirt then folds the edges in so that it has a desired width and then rolls the shirt from the tail to the neckline. More shirts can be stored in a single drawer this way then if they are folded. They can also be easily seen and identified by just looking in the drawer. Clothes stored in this way will sometimes need more ironing to be free of wrinkles then a folded shirt.

Most everyone has clothes that they hang in a closet generally including; coats, dresses, suits and sometimes jeans. Sweaters and clothes that are made of stretch materials should never be hung up because they can become stretched and even possibly ruined. Additionally, pants should not be hung over metal hangers because it will cause creases across the pant legs, if hanging up jeans so that they have a crease running down the legs it is important to put them on plastic hangers.

Choosing the best way to organize and manage laundry is really based on the what the item of clothing is and what characteristic of the storage is most important to the person doing the laundry.