Keeping Black pants from fading?

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What do you put in the washer to keep black pants from fading? I remember that you can add an item to the water to stop the fading or at least reduce that fading.

-- Bel Ami (belamiboys@yahoo.com), June 21, 2001

Answers

I have used white vinagar to set the dye on basket reed and tye-dye items. Works fairly well. There is an item with the Rit Dye display for setting the color into whatever you are dying this would probably work for you too.

-- Lynne (lekhorse@yahoo.com), June 21, 2001.

I bought some stuff that is suppose to whiten whites. There should be something to do the same for blacks.

I know what you mean, the blacks seem to fade after a while. I will be watching this post so I can get whatever it is that will bring the blacks back to black.

-- Cordy (ckaylegian@aol.com), June 21, 2001.


It helps to turn them inside out while being washed and dried. They still will fade, but it takes longer.

Bonnie

-- Bonnie (witsend@merr.com), June 21, 2001.


There is nothing to stop the fading eventually everything fades but to postpone it for a period of time: wash all black and dark clothes together,turn all black and dark colored clothes inside out while washing and drying,wash them only in cold water,use liquid not powder soap and add 1/4 cup of vinger to wash load.

-- TomK (tjk@cac.net), June 21, 2001.

Vinegar... and that's my final answer

-- Carole (carle@earthlink.net), June 21, 2001.


Fabric material retains water which has to be evaporated out to get it dry no matter how good a job your wringer or spin cycle does. If your water is hard or you have soap/detergent that does not fully dissolve then tiny amounts build up in the fabric over time leading to what appears to be a gradual lightening of the color (fading). At the same time, in natural fabrics, it's the nature of dyes to want to gradually leach out of the fabric into the water and this is exacerbated by physical contact (rubbing against) other materials.

You can't entirely stop these processes but you can slow them down which is what the folks above are explaining.

A half-cup of vinegar in the wash load will lower the pH of the water sufficiently to make the minerals in the water want to stay in solution and improve the solubility of your soap/detergent so you'll have less build up of light colored minerals and/or soap in the fabric. Turning the clothes inside out will keep the outside of the clothing from rubbing so much against other surfaces and lessen the wear. Neither will eliminate fading but just slow it.

On occasion I've resorted to redying some types of clothing and it worked well enough if it was a uniform color to begin with.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), June 22, 2001.


I just read on tightwadtess site to soak them in cold salt water 30 minutes before washing. I haven't tried it but sounded like a good idea. DW

-- DW (djwallace@ctos.com), June 24, 2001.

woolite now makes a laundry wash for dark fabrics. hope this helps . lynne

-- lynne (lhacker@iowatelecom.net), May 07, 2002.

soak in vinegar before the 1st time you wash. I wouldn't doubt it that rit-dye setting agent is basically just vinegar.

You could always use black rit-dye to make them look new again.

-- Dave (multiplierx9@hotmail.com), May 07, 2002.


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