Bleaching clothes dyes
Dr. Slack, Tue Aug 15 2006, 04:28PMI have a number of more or less tatty clothes (retired from daily office wear) that I use for gardening and the workshop, and my wife is terrified that I am going to wear some of the less obviously ripped ones outside where I can be seen and recognised. My plan is to use a pen and bleach something like "Calvin Grosse" into a prominent part of them, to make them easier to spot as they come out of the wash so they don't find their way back to the wardrobe.
I don't want to buy "Dygon", and experiments on long-term fabric weakening will take, by definition, a long time. I guess all of the following will kill dye to some extent, but which will be least likely to rot cotton or poly-cotton mix?
a) ordinary hypochlorite bleach
b) 30vol (9%) peroxide
c) sodium dichloroisocyanurate (baby bottle steriliser) tablets
Re: Bleaching clothes dyes
Bored Chemist, Tue Aug 15 2006, 05:03PM
If you just need to make them "distinctive" then I suggest tie-bleaching them (like tie-dye- but with bleach).
That way you don't need to do a very good job of trashing the dye so you can use less bleach.
Cotton will stand up to bleaching with the 2 chlorine based bleaches, polyester is a little less robust but you don't really have a problem- it should be OK. Peroxide is usually more selective so I guess it would do less damage to the fabric but I don't think the difference is worth making a lot of fuss about.
In my experience navy blue dyes bleach to an orangy red colour so you sure will notice the effect.
If we were talking about bleaching silk or wool then the chlorine would be a complete non starter. Nylon doesn't like chlorine based bleach either.
(Pointless disclaimer)
I haven't tried this sort of thing; but the cotton shirt I splashed with bleach, tried to re dye, failed, bleached the whole lot and finally dyed black is still OK. Your milage may vary.
Of course, since the stuff you are bleaching is already a bit trashed, I guess it doesn't matter much if you shorten it's remaining life a bit.
Bored Chemist, Tue Aug 15 2006, 05:03PM
If you just need to make them "distinctive" then I suggest tie-bleaching them (like tie-dye- but with bleach).
That way you don't need to do a very good job of trashing the dye so you can use less bleach.
Cotton will stand up to bleaching with the 2 chlorine based bleaches, polyester is a little less robust but you don't really have a problem- it should be OK. Peroxide is usually more selective so I guess it would do less damage to the fabric but I don't think the difference is worth making a lot of fuss about.
In my experience navy blue dyes bleach to an orangy red colour so you sure will notice the effect.
If we were talking about bleaching silk or wool then the chlorine would be a complete non starter. Nylon doesn't like chlorine based bleach either.
(Pointless disclaimer)
I haven't tried this sort of thing; but the cotton shirt I splashed with bleach, tried to re dye, failed, bleached the whole lot and finally dyed black is still OK. Your milage may vary.
Of course, since the stuff you are bleaching is already a bit trashed, I guess it doesn't matter much if you shorten it's remaining life a bit.
Re: Bleaching clothes dyes
Heiders, Thu Aug 17 2006, 01:46AM
I worked in a kitchen for a semester, and we used a fairly weak solution of bleach in hot water to sterilize the dishes. Any clothing I wore there came home with spots.
Maybe flicking droplets of dilute standard bleach on the clothes would personalize them without damaging them unduly.
Heiders, Thu Aug 17 2006, 01:46AM
I worked in a kitchen for a semester, and we used a fairly weak solution of bleach in hot water to sterilize the dishes. Any clothing I wore there came home with spots.
Maybe flicking droplets of dilute standard bleach on the clothes would personalize them without damaging them unduly.Print this page