I've long done my laundry in cold water. I am not sure when exactly this habit started but I am not sure that I can remember a time when I haven't washed my things in cold water. Sure it means that you've got to pre-treat a stain, a spot or something otherwise very dirty but such is life.

So this headline in the NYT caught my eye this weekend: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/business/cold-water-detergents-get-a-chilly-reception.html" target="_blank">Cold-Water Detergent Gets the Cold Shoulder</a>. What?! Why is that?
<blockquote>Newly formulated laundry detergents can wash most clothes perfectly well in cold water, manufacturers say, but customers are stubbornly refusing to turn down the temperature. Although some of these detergents have been available for several years, customers cling to mom’s age-old advice that hot water washes best — squandering energy and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.

Even in Germany, where consumers tend to be more environmentally attuned than in the United States, manufacturers have discovered that cold-water washing is such a hard sell that they have relegated claims about it — and the attendant green benefits — to the fine print, choosing to emphasize other attributes.</blockquote>
Well it turns out that people <em>like</em> to wash their clothes in hot water. People think that hot water is better despite the increased energy required to wash clothes in hot water.

Huna. Not me. <!--more-->

However all of this did illuminate why my front loading washing machine here in Sofia has options in degrees Celsius ranging from snowflake to 90 degrees Celsius.

Just stop and think about that for a minute. 90 degrees Celsius is 194 degrees Fahrenheit.

As for the snowflake? Well, I'm pretty sure that my washing machine is just using cold water to wash the clothes and not actually little snowflakes. Even though a snowflake cycle would be pretty cool.

So, who taught you how to do laundry? Are you using hot water to wash your clothes? Why or why not?