What Leniencies Apply to Laundry on Chol HaMoed

Greetings and blessings.

The reason laundry is forbidden on Chol HaMoed is not because of the difficulty involved, for by Torah law it should have been permitted to do laundry on the festival for the needs of the festival; rather, the concern was that one might leave all the laundry for Chol HaMoed and not wash clothing in honor of the holiday.

I will bring you all the leniencies that exist on this matter from Yalkut Yosef:

It is permitted to wash towels used for drying hands, which become dirty constantly, as well as towels used after washing. And there are those who say that today one should be stringent in this, since even during the rest of the year they are not changed except from Shabbat to Shabbat. [Yalkut Yosef on the Festivals, p. 519].

3 Handkerchiefs may be washed on Chol HaMoed. [ibid.]. 

A woman who is within her seven clean days of counting, and who must wear clean white undergarments and spread clean white sheets on her bed, as well as the rest of the bedding if needed, is permitted to wash these garments on Chol HaMoed.

7 Similarly, it is permitted to wash the clothing of small children, since they are accustomed to becoming dirty constantly with dust and mud. Nevertheless, if one washes them by hand, one should wash only one garment at a time, and only what is most necessary. But when washing the garments and diapers of very young infants who urinate in them and pass stool in them, it is permitted to wash even several at once, because many of them are needed at every hour. And even with the clothing of other small children up to about the age of three [approximately], the custom is to be lenient. 

8 In our time, when many people are accustomed to changing the white garments worn next to the body almost every day, because they are constantly soiled by sweat, especially in hot places, and they were washed before the festival, and he has no other clothes to change into on Chol HaMoed, it is permitted to wash them [in a washing machine] during the festival. [

9It is permitted to wash the clothes of small children on Chol HaMoed in a washing machine, together with the diapers of infants, so long as the laundry is being done for the needs of the festival. But when it is not for the needs of the festival, one should not be lenient, even though everything is done at once with the diapers that may be washed. And adult clothing should not be combined with the clothing of small children and infants and washed in the washing machine. [Yabia Omer, vol. 7, siman 48].

10 If a stain fell on one’s clothing during Chol HaMoed and it became dirty, it is permitted to clean it with cleaning agents, for this is not included in the category of washing that the Sages prohibited. (This was also ruled by Igrot Moshe Feinstein (Orach Chaim vol. 5, siman 36, letter 1), and in Be’er Moshe vol. 7 (siman 33), and likewise by Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah, part 2, siman 66, subsection 72).

12If one’s clothes became soaked in water on Chol HaMoed, it is permitted to hang them in the sun, and there is no concern of the appearance of wrongdoing, as they were stringent about this on Shabbat. [Amek Halacha 146]. 

13 It is permitted to press one’s clothes on Chol HaMoed with a hot iron. [Yalkut Yosef on the Festivals, p. 518]. 

14 It is obvious that it is permitted to clean clothing and hats of dust that has fallen on them with a brush, and there is no concern whatsoever of any prohibition. [Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah, ibid., subsection 74].

Success,

Binyamin Shmueli