Bleach that didn't bleach!

[chappie]

Don't know if this is the right category, but wanted to share this with you.

My hubby got two stains on his work shirt (spaghetti bolognaise, I think). Nothing I tried would shift the stains, so he suggested I bleach the whole shirt, turning it white, and also dyeing the offending stains.

It's very strange, but the shirt didn't change colour, even after several hours soaking in bleach. The bleach made no impact on it, except to fade the two stains. It is now wearable. Strange. I thought bleach would strip the colour out of anything.

PS: I know this is not a question, so some might say it shouldn't be here, or perhaps I should have posted on Chatterbank ......... I don't know.

[adamhornsby]

was it white household bleach or any others?

[chappie]

I believe it was household bleach, to be honest I didn't realise there was more than one type.

Thanks for reply.

[adamhornsby]

i was just wondering whether you've used something like harpic or domestos. i though just plain value thin white bleach would do the trick

[chappie]

Thanks for reply. It is called "Easy" and it says on the bottle, it kills more household germs than any other cleaner.

I am chuffed to bits with the result, because I didn't hold out much hope of it being wearable after I had tried to bleach it white - I thought it might come out patchy, but it hasn't.

[taichiperson]

What type of material was the shirt? Bleach would take colour out of a cotton fabric, but may not be effective on a manmade fibre. It probably depends on the type of dye used too, though I'm not able to give you any more info there.

[chappie]

Thanks for reply.

It's a very thick cotton shirt. I thought it would take the colour out, no problem.

[karelat1]

hi -

white as you may be aware, is not an official colour (
as neither is black, they are both made of raw material derivitives). but that is going off the subject - lol.


cotton in its natural state is an off cream colour. so if cotton during manufacture of clothing, is needed to be white (that is the colour the garment was intended to be), it is bleached to white - and then you have a white garment for wearing, so therefore the more you bleach it - the whiter it gets. but too much bleaching, can weaken the fibres

and if cotton during clothes manufacture is intended to be a colour it is then dyed with a dye to that colour, and then if you bleach that piece of clothing, bleach just takes the dye out (just like resetting the piece of clothing)

so bleach of any kind on white clothing (be careful, as most manmade fibres CANT take chlorine bleach (which is what you used) but on cotton it would not strip the colour out of a pure cotton shirt, as there is no colour to strip in the first place.

if you want to keep clothes clean with bleach (coloureds too), use a laundry colour safe chlorine free bleach, especially designed for clothes, such as ACE bleach.

hope this helps :)