When buying clothes, no one thinks about their service life, because thoughts are occupied with how they decorate, how they like them, how well they bought them. Meanwhile, a surprise is possible even before the first wear. Housewives who care about the health of their family and their own prefer to wash new clothes to get rid of store dirt and traces of fittings. And here it is, surprise! The thing faded. It remains to decide what to do if things faded during washing - throw them away or put them in order. If we throw it away, we say goodbye and forget. And if you like it, it’s a pity to throw it away, then you should think about how to wash a faded item.
Why do clothes fade?
Who is to blame if the item fades after washing? There are many candidates: manufacturers of fabrics, clothing, washing machines, laundry detergents, the housewife herself. Purity of color disappears for several reasons.
- Gray, yellowish, brown, blue stains are formed from excess powder during washing.
- An incorrect washing mode results in dirt being smeared onto the fabric rather than being removed.
- Rust in the soaking container, washing machine or drying line.
- Washing colored laundry together with white.
- Printing, ink printing, or hand-painting on fabric may bleed if the water is too hot.
- During production, the paint on the fabric is weakly fixed or the fabric is saturated with it in excess. This often happens with jeans.
- When sewing clothes of combined colors, fabrics with different dyeing methods are combined.
- Decorative elements are made of low-quality materials and cannot be washed. Piping, cords, fabric buttons, and seam finishing with threads of contrasting colors sometimes create problems.
- Bad dye on some parts of clothing.
- Wrong choice of bleach or stain remover. If you pour bleach into the washing machine when washing, there is a possibility that you will end up with items that are the same dirty brown color.
- The washing temperature is high.
Before the first wash, a new item is briefly soaked in warm water with powder. It will be immediately obvious whether she sheds or not. This way, the quality of the dye and dyed fabric is checked without risking the rest of the clothing.
Delay is unacceptable!
You will be able to bleach a faded item at home if you start “rescue” immediately, without allowing the damaged clothes to dry.
The first way to eliminate color casts on white fabrics is to rinse thoroughly. And not machine-made, but manual. Pour hot water into the laundry basin and rinse the clothes vigorously several times. If the paint is unstable, it is not difficult to bleach faded linen.
If the fabric is badly damaged, simply rinsing is not enough. You will have to use either one of the industrial bleaches or home remedies.
How to wash a faded white item
When washing a completely white item, it is enough to wash it separately from colored laundry. But a white blouse with a black collar and cuffs or a white shirt with colored inserts will have to be taken seriously. Clothing manufacturers often do not think about the compatibility of materials and the durability of paint on combined items. As a result, the owner gets colored stains on white.
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The easiest option, when stains are noticed on wet clothes immediately after washing, is to wash them again, thoroughly rubbing the stained areas. If this does not help, stains are discovered when the clothes have already dried and absorbed the paint, use proven methods.
Before you wash faded white items with bleach, pay attention to its composition. Household chlorine bleaches (similar to Whiteness) can damage fabrics and
selective in use (for example, they can remove stains from cotton, linen), so it’s worth stocking up on oxygen or optical ones. Optical agents work with white things, and oxygen ones work with any kind, so it is better to focus on the “White” mark.
The method of washing white clothes by boiling has long been known. But it is not suitable for all modern fabrics; it requires a lot of time and effort, so it is of little relevance.
Here's how to remove stains on white and mixed items.
Stain remover + bleach + washing powder
Stain remover and bleach are mixed in equal proportions with washing powder in a standard dosage for one wash. The components are dissolved in warm water, and the laundry is placed there. The fabric is mixed well to ensure uniform impregnation, soaked for a day, then washed. The method is suitable for old faded stains on white.
Hydrogen peroxide + baking soda
Soda (1 tbsp) and hydrogen peroxide (1 tsp) are dissolved in 2 liters of water. The item is placed in the solution and cooked over low heat (700) for 10–15 minutes. After cooking, the laundry is thoroughly rinsed. If 2 liters of solution is not enough to immerse the laundry, the dosage is increased multiple times: 2 tablespoons of ingredients are taken per 4 liters.
Boric acid
A solution is prepared from boric acid for soaking dried and stale stains on white. For every liter of water add 1 tbsp. l. acid, the laundry is soaked for 1.5-2 hours, then washed with powder or soap.
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Citric acid + soap + starch + salt
Citric acid will help remove even old stains from faded items. Apply a thick paste of 1 tbsp to a wet cloth. l. citric acid, 1 tbsp. l. starch, 1/2 tbsp. l. salt (not iodized), 1 tbsp. l. laundry soap (rubbed with shavings on a fine grater). The ingredients are diluted with a few drops of warm water to a thick paste, applied to the stain and left overnight (up to 12 hours). Then the dried pulp must be removed and the item washed with powder.
Emergency method for synthetic fabrics
To save synthetic clothes that have lost their freshness, buy oxygen bleach. It should be used according to the instructions. If you don't get creative with the process, you'll fail. Dilute and use oxygen bleach as directed on the package.
The product is more expensive than chlorine-containing bleaches for good reason - it does not spoil the fabric, refreshes the color, and even restores faded items. And it is universal in application - it can be used for any fabric, even woolen fabrics and at low temperatures.
Important! Do not use optical brighteners on faded laundry. There will be no result.
By the way, you can use oxygen bleach if you need to restore a black and white item. Other chemicals cannot be used in this situation.
How to remove faded stains from colored clothes
How to wash faded items and still maintain their original color? Special stain removers for colored linen and some folk recipes will help. Oxygen and optical products marked “Color” are designed for colored items. Chlorine-containing bleaches are not used on colored items because the result is an off-white stain on the colored item instead of the expected return to the original color.
Hydrogen peroxide
Dissolve the usual dose of washing powder in a container with warm water, then add 6% hydrogen peroxide. The soaked laundry is left overnight. Then another wash with powder and rinse.
Ammonia
For 10 liters of warm water, take 20 ml of ammonia. Faded clothes are immersed in the solution for an hour. After soaking, wash with powder. This will get rid of any remaining stains and odors. The method is suitable for color and white.
Baking soda
To remove stains, soda is diluted with a few drops of warm water to a thick paste and applied to the stain for 10–15 minutes. Afterwards, rinse thoroughly under running water. With the help of soda, faded stains and stains from juices and berries are washed from clothes.
Vinegar
Vinegar solutions are used to fix color. Immediately after washing, dilute 1 tbsp in cold water. l. vinegar (3 liters) and rinse the product well. If you wash faded colored items and fix the color, then next time they will not lose color.
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Salt
Salt is often used to remove excess dye and restore the whiteness of cotton fabrics. Dissolve 1 tbsp in 5 liters of water. l. salt, used for rinsing after washing.
Pharmacy assistants
Peroxide, ammonia and potassium permanganate are described as household bleaches.
Important! Do not use peroxide to bleach colored materials! It acts like chlorine.
In order to whiten bed linen, boil them in a solution of peroxide and ammonia. Add a tablespoon of each solution to 10 liters of water.
Potassium permanganate is recommended by many authors for color restoration and whitening. We do not recommend this method. It is very difficult to achieve complete dissolution of the crystals in water; they can settle pointwise at the bottom of the container. If the material comes into contact with such a “point”, a new spot will appear.
What to do if the item has faded and cannot be washed
If the methods presented do not help, there are several options for further use of the item:
- Modernize. A blouse with long sleeves and stains on the cuffs can easily be transformed into a new one with short sleeves. And the dress is a skirt or blouse. If it is impossible to remove a faded stain, you can cut it off.
- Decorate. The stain can be easily covered with embroidery, a decorative patch, figured edging or iron-on adhesive. This is rarely suitable for business style clothing; you will have to be creative so as not to disturb the image.
- Repaint. Fabric paints cost pennies and are sold in hardware or craft stores. You'll have to use your imagination. Has your white T-shirt acquired a green stain? Tie knots on it in several places and cook it in green dye - a fashionable and unique print is guaranteed. Was the blouse washed with jeans and turned blue in places? Blue dye and half an hour of time - a new blue blouse. Has the item acquired a dirty pink tint from children's tights? A hanger and a couple of stages of soaking in a cool dye solution - a chic gradient that will hide all the unpleasant shades. If things of dark colors have faded, they are lightened with bleach or painted black.
Proper washing
First, it is necessary to sort the laundry into white, black and colored and wash them separately.
Are you unplugging your washing machine?
Oh yes! No
White things
If the items are not too dirty, it is recommended to wash them by hand with a small amount of detergent and without soaking.
In case of severe contamination, you can use SMA and use detergents with a bleaching effect and chemicals according to the instructions.
Colored linen
To wash colored items without damaging the color, it is important to sort them correctly.
Ideally, you need to load things of the same color into the machine. For the procedure, it is important to use powders only for colored fabrics that do not contain bleaches that can damage clothes.
When rinsing, you can add table vinegar to the water - it will refresh and fix the color of the fabric.
Colored things
How to wash so things don't fade
Simple rules should be followed.
- The first wash is done by hand. This is difficult to do with bulky items such as bed linen or bedspreads. Soaking with powder for two hours before washing in the machine will help. It is better to take water at the same temperature as planned for washing.
- Sorting before storing for washing in the washing machine. Do not mix white and color, synthetics and natural fabrics.
- Follow the recommendations on clothing labels.
- Do not wash jeans along with other colored items during the first washes (until the excess dye is washed out).
- If you have any doubts about how to wash something without it fading, wash it by hand.
To prevent your favorite sweater from fading during washing, soak it in salt water, and then rinse thoroughly and wash it in the usual way.
It happens that there is no time to sort the laundry, there is not enough sorted laundry for the bookmark, and a thousand other reasons why everything ends up in the drum. In this case, it is worth minimizing the consequences. With a quick wash (30 minutes) and cold water (300), the chances of clothes fading will be much less than with a full cycle in hot water.
Some useful tips
To protect things from losing their colors, remember:
- When purchasing clothes, lightly rub the fabric with a damp cloth. If a colored mark appears on it, the coloring is of poor quality.
- Carefully sort your laundry before placing it in the machine. Consider not only the color, but also the type of fabric.
- Bleaching clothes no more often than after 4 to 5 washes.
- Place a new item in the machine after pre-soaking it in a cold saline solution.
- Always wash delicate items by hand, separately from other items.
And most importantly: realistically assess the need for this or that clothing. If a child or husband has 5 T-shirts, is it worth restoring the sixth? Save your energy and solve everyday problems easily.
Recommendations
To avoid unpleasant surprises associated with molting things, you must:
- Before washing, read the label and strictly follow the conditions specified by the manufacturer.
- It is better to immediately wash new clothes, especially if they are made from brightly colored synthetic fabrics, in cool water with a small amount of powder. Most often, fabrics of red, blue, green, and black shades shed.
- If there is any doubt that a newly purchased item may fade, you need to soak it for several hours in a solution of table salt. This allows the color of the fabric to set and prevents shedding. This is especially true for denim products, which can fade even after prolonged wear.
- Items made of viscose and crepe de Chine must be sorted from knitted and woolen items before the procedure.
- Swimsuits and swimming trunks, underwear, and socks are always washed separately from each other.
- After washing, you should not fold and dry clothes of different colors next to each other.
Expert opinion
Irina. Housewife.
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If you suspect that an item may fade, it is better not to put it in the drum of the washing machine, but to wash it by hand.
Traditional methods
- Baking soda can help remove stains on denim pants and jackets. It is applied in the form of a paste to problem areas and left for 10 minutes, then washed off.
- Colored fabrics can be resuscitated with medical alcohol. 100 ml is added to 2 liters of water and the item is soaked for 2 hours. At the end of the exposure time, the item should be wrung out and rinsed thoroughly.
- You can get rid of small stains using baking soda and vinegar. Combine the components in equal parts and apply directly to problem areas. Leave for 1 hour and wash.
- Home remedies include mustard powder. Cover the laundry with it, pour boiling water and let it sit for several hours, and then wash it with any detergent.
