It happens to everybody at some point. Bleach gets on your one of your favorite shirts or pants, and you have an ugly, discolored mark. What can you do about it? Can it be fixed, or does it mean that article of clothing is forever ruined?
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In all honesty, you can’t really undo a bleach mark. Bleach takes the color out of fabric, period. It can’t be “unbleached.” However, all may not be lost, and there are a couple of remedies that may help you to salvage your item.
Dye it
In the laundry aisle of most stores you can find clothing dye. Find a color that most closely matches your item, and follow the directions to dye the entire item the new color.
Bleach it
If bleach has splattered on your item, you might try just bleaching the whole item, and living with whatever new color emerges. Place the item in a small load wash with a small amount of bleach. Or, you can hand wash the item with bleach in the water. Prepare yourself: you may end up with a tie dye look. Who knows? You may actually like the effect.
Mark it
If the bleach marks on your item are small and/or inconspicuous, you may try the “quick fix” of using a permanent marker. This technique works best on black or dark colored items. Simply use a permanent marker that most closely matches the color of your item, and color in the bleached spots. You may have to redo the spots after the next wash as the permanent marker may fade.
Patch it
Try covering up the bleach mark with a patch. This works especially well if the bleach mark is on a pair of pants (especially jeans) where patches don’t look too out of place.
An Ounce of Prevention
The best way to deal with bleach marks is to avoid them to begin with. Following these simple precautions can help you to do that:
- After adding bleach to the bleach dispenser in your washer, flush the dispenser with several capfuls of water so that no bleach residue will remain to ruin the next load of clothes.
- Do not place clothes that have been bleached (i.e. whites) in the same basket, or even in the same dryer with colored clothes—any remaining bleach residue may bleed onto the others clothes, causing bleach marks and discoloration.
- When pouring bleach, make sure no colored clothes are within splashing distance.
- Bleach can be hiding in unexpected places:
- Be careful when using certain anti-bacterial spray cleaners that contain bleach. If these get on your clothing, they will leave bleach stains.
- If you have a pool, the chlorine that you add to your pool can bleach your clothing.
- Other household items, such as hydrogen peroxide and certain whitening toothpastes, can have a bleaching affect on certain types of fabric, so exercise caution.
- Powdered cleansers such as Comet or Ajax contain bleach that can discolor clothing or other fabric.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I accidentally sprayed my shirt with the grapefruit that I was sectioning, and it bleached it. Be careful with lemon, too. Use an apron as a preventative!
i have washed several loads of beige and brown towels with regular washing detergent on cold water cycle.they have spots looking like they have been in bleach.my daughter had the same problem with a khahi dress.bleach looking stain on the front.she did not use bleach just powder washing detergent
I just found out that using Spray and Wash is not recommended for khaki clothing. I think my problem could be that the bleach dispenser drains in the tub after using it.
I recently bought a vintage van halen 1984 shirt that had black baseball style sleeves.Well mother in law watched my baby that day and did clothes i thought oh no she bleaches all whites.And yes it got bleached but not bad i used a sharpie to cover it up and believe it or not it acutally works.It didnt fade out much eithier try it youll love it.Also i found baby oil does the trick for grease and oil stains and doesnt harm sorouned fabrics awsum.
Also becareful with fabric softner on white clothes can cause harm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!even name brands.And does woolite perserve a color?????
Well, instead of putting my pants in the dryer, I decided to hang them up–to prevent from shrinking, so the next day, i don’t know how it got on there but kind of dull pink spots emerged on some random places of my pants. I guess somebody used a bleach product around where my pants were hanging, so keep your clothes in a safe place to dry!!!!(just in case you live with other people)
My Chuck Taylor =[
I just spent $44 on a pair of chucks and i got a small splatter on it. I colored it in with permanent marker but it doesn’t seem right. i can still see a hint of orange stain and the permanent marker gives the area a glossy look. anyway would the dye would work? Any help would be sincerely appreciated
Thanks
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bleached marks
we get extensive bleached out spots on towels, clothes..not using bleach. Can clothes wet with pool water cause bleach spots in those clothes or clothes in contact for a protracted period?
I saw that benzoyl peroxide, and some enzyme cleaners can do this.. any thing else?
thanks