Red and orange dyes are notoriously vulnerable to bleeding, so these colors require extra vigilance on the part of the consumer.
One easy way to test if a fabric is colorfast is to dampen a clean, white cloth. Rub the wet cloth on an interior seam or hem of a colored garment. If any color comes off onto the white cloth, then the item is not colorfast and the dye will run when the garment is washed.
Add 1 cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle or one-half cup salt to the wash to help hold in colors. Use color-catcher sheets, which trap extraneous dyes during the wash cycle to prevent bleeding. Don't overstuff your dryer.
Try to group colors together – wash pastels in one group, then separate reds, oranges and yellows from green, blue or purple items with darker hues. If your brights are brand new, wash them separately for the first few washes to help keep them from bleeding dye onto other clothes.
Why do colours run in the wash? When any non-colourfast items are washed at too high a temperature, the dye bleeds out of the fabric – especially with newer items. This is why it's important to separate loads of washing carefully by colour.
Remember, washing with a warm water temperature – on cycles at 40°C or higher – can come with a few downsides: It can cause colours to fade. It can damage certain fabrics over time. It can cause items to shrink in the laundry.
It's very important to wash your lights and darks laundry separately, as darker dyes can ruin lighter fabrics. Sort your greys, blacks, navies, reds, dark purples and similar colours into one load, and your pinks, lavenders, light blues, light greens and yellows into another laundry.
1) How to clean white clothes
Be sure to wash white clothes separately from anything with colour, such as dark items or brights. Even lightly dyed items and older clothes can leech dye during a wash cycle, which can stain your whites or give them a dull, grey appearance.
Answer. It's usually OK to put light grey laundry in the whites load with Clorox® Disinfecting Bleach. A couple of things to consider here: First, make sure the fabric can be safely bleached by checking the fiber content on the care label.
Clothes with deep colors are more likely to bleed dye when washed. To avoid damaging other clothing, sort laundry according to color, grouping dark, medium and light colors separately. Wash deep colored clothing like indigo jeans or red sweatshirts by themselves for the first few washings.
Dark and light colored clothes should be washed separately in cold water. Washing clothes in cold water will mostly prevent color bleeding between clothes.
Drying clothes with colors can cause the colors to bleed and mix, which can ruin both the clothes and the dryer. When you put wet clothes in the dryer, the heat causes the fibers of the fabric to open up and release any dye that is still present in the fabric.
How to Do a Fabric Bleed Test. Submerge a small piece of fabric in soapy water—a two-inch square is fine. Use the same soap and water temperature you normally use to wash fabrics and quilts. Let the fabric sit in the soapy solution for about 30 minutes, then check to see if the water is discolored.
Hot water opens up fibers in the clothing, which releases dye, while cold water helps keep them closed, trapping the dye to help prevent color bleeding.
Mixing fabrics, colors, and very dirty items with not-so-dirty can have disastrous results. When new, black clothes can bleed dye onto lighter colors. Washing delicates with heavy fabrics, using the delicate setting, can damage the fine items and do a poor job cleaning the heavier fabrics.
Will the color ruin my clothes or running shoes? The color mostly washes out after the event. As with anything dirty, the sooner you wash it the better. It's best to wear items that you wouldn't mind getting colorful.
Your grey clothes should go in the dark pile. The reason for this is simple. Your light pile of clothing is for pastel colours like pinks, light blues and lavenders, for example. The dark pile is for blacks, navies, reds and greys.
What color do you get when bleaching Light Grey. Light Grey turns to pink or off-white when bleached.
Your light-colored clothes are perfectly safe to be washed together with your whites. That means light-blue, light-brown, pink, light-green, lavender, yellow, beige, cream, orange, fuchsia and other pastel shades can go into the same pile as your whites, light greys, and garments with white background prints.
Tips for Washing White Clothing
The minerals in hard water can leave whites looking dull. Never pour full-strength chlorine bleach or hydrogen peroxide into a washer filled with clothes.
Cause: If you use the incorrect amount of detergent, limescale and soap scum may accumulate on your clothes (grey coating). White towels that have turned grey due to limescale can be whitened again by washing them in the washing machine with a small amount of citric acid powder or vinegar instead of detergent.
If you're washing a load of colorfast items with your whites, you can proceed as you would with any other white load. But if you're washing a load of white garments that contain spandex or have mixed color patterns, you'll need to treat them as colors—meaning no bleach.
Washing your garments on 30°C temperatures will help to protect colours from running. For your brights and darks we specifically recommend using Persil Colour Protect liquid, which removes stains at 30 degrees and is specifically designed to keep your colours vibrant.
The warmer the temperature, the greater the risk of the colour running. This is because hotter temperatures cause the fibres in the clothing to open up and relax, releasing traces of the dye. Cooler temperatures keep the fibres clamped shut, minimising any colour leakage.
If you don't have a good colour run remover, a home remedy can also work well for shifting stubborn colour stains. Try adding a cup of distilled white vinegar to a bowl of cold water and soaking the stained area. Be sure to test a small area of the clothing first to check it won't be affected by the vinegar.