Did Your Colors Run in the Wash?

All growing up my mom did my laundry for me so when I moved away to go to college, the whole laundry chore was a new venture for me. Probably my biggest mistake when starting to do my own laundry was washing my favorite white t-shirt with my jeans. I don't even know what made me do it, but I guess I was in a hurry and just went for it. Oops. I couldn't really wear the shirt anymore because it looked gray and dingy. So then, how should I have done my laundry so that my white shirt didn't end up looking dirty?

The answer to that comes in taking measures to ensure your colors don't run in your wash. There are products out there that profess their ability to prevent color bleeding, but those products can be a bit expensive and actually unnecessary if you just take care when doing your laundry.

The best way to treat color bleeding in the wash is by prevention. Sort your clothes well. This may sound elementary, but if you know how to separate the clothes in your wash (which, granted I didn't really know how to do until I was nineteen and had to start paying for my own clothes), then managing color runs is so much easier. Separate your wash into hot, warm, and cold loads (this usually depends on the fabric of your clothes to prevent shrinking, but can be sorted according to stains or something else of the like) and then take separating a step further and separate your temperature piles into lights and darks (and mediums if you need to). This classification process will do wonders to reduce and may even completely eliminate severe color runs in your washing. (One of the tips I follow is to wash my jeans in a whole separate load; that way if they bleed it doesn't really matter because they're all the same color!)

Now you may be wondering what to do if your clothes already have color stains and you don't want to donate the lost cause shirt to charity (like I did). Again, there are products you can buy to take out those color stains, but you can save money by trying some at-home remedies. You may be able to remove accidental dyes from whites and other colors by gently bleaching them with twenty-volume-strength hydrogen peroxide. Mix one part to six parts water and soak for thirty minutes. Test this solution, though, to make sure it won't bleach your clothes funny colors—then you'd be in a worse place than when you started!

The key to dealing with color run in your wash is to just take all precautions: prevent it! Taking care in your wash isn't hard and if you do take those measures you'll end up happier with your laundry. Trust me—I had to learn the hard way.