​Get Color Bleed Out of Clothes With Hydrogen Peroxide

remove-color-bleed-with-hydrogen-peroxide.

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Have you ever found your white clothes to have changed their color after a wash in the washing machine? If yes, you have also been a victim of the color bleeds. A color bleed occurs when the fabric gets wet, and its dye starts coming off.

The dye can affect your other clothes in the washing machine and transfer its color to them. The most common mishap occurs with the white clothes when they are found to be turned in a red or any other color after a wash in the washing machine. It hurts, doesn’t it?

The number one cause of color bleeding is mixing dark-colored fabrics with light-colored fabrics. Well, let’s face it, it happened, and now we need to do something about it.

The next question is that how can you get rid of the color bleeds? Hydrogen peroxide is your answer.

This useful chemical would make your clothes look like just before and get the color bleed out of them fast and safely. Hydrogen peroxide is a versatile cleaner with amazing oxidizing properties that allow it to have a multifaceted usage.

How To Remove Color Bleed From Clothes

You can remove color bleed from clothes by using hydrogen peroxide. Its oxidizing powers impart great cleaning qualities, making it one of the most efficient chemicals that you can use for household cleaning.

You must have heard about hydrogen peroxide and its use in bleaching pretty much everything. For example, hydrogen peroxide is the compound applied before using hair dyes to bleach your hair. In the same way, it gets rid of color bleeds from your clothes.

So, here’s how you can use it to your advantage!

#1 Using Hydrogen Peroxide To Remove Color Bleed From Clothes

Hydrogen peroxide works on the stains by destabilizing the color-causing compounds. These color-causing agents, when decomposed, lose their ability to cause color and thus result in cleaning your clothes.

Hydrogen peroxide can remove the color bleed from your clothes just in the same manner.

Using hydrogen peroxide to remove the color bleed from clothes would be a wise choice because hydrogen peroxide is soft on the clothes and hard on the stains.

The appropriate usage of this agent would leave your clothes exactly like they looked before the color bleed. You should use hydrogen peroxide to remove spots of color bleeds rather than the entire cloth because it is not as strong an agent as bleach.

What You Need

How to Use

For this method to be effective, you need to make sure that you have a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution since that is the ideal concentration for household cleaning. Here are the steps to clean the color bleeds:

  1. Fill a tub with a 1:1 ratio of water and hydrogen peroxide
  2. Soak your stained clothes in the tub
  3. Allow your stained clothes to be soaked for about 30 minutes
  4. Take your clothes out and dry them. You should find your stains to be gone.

Things To Keep In Mind

Hydrogen peroxide is a mild cleaning agent and it is important that it is used in appropriate quantity. Using more of it can damage your clothes and using less of it might not be as effective in removing the stains.

Hydrogen peroxide is an abrasive chemical and it can damage your eyes or skin if they are exposed to it. Therefore, maintaining a safe distance and usage of gloves while using it should be exercised.

If soaking in the solution does not seem enough, do not start rubbing the stain. If you rub the stain, the color bleed will spread and you would be taking two steps back. Repeat the process if you don’t find the stains to be gone on the first try.

Apart from hydrogen peroxide, you can use two more methods. But, neither of them is as straightforward, effective, and safe as hydrogen peroxide!

#2 Using Bleach To Remove Color Bleed From Clothes

If you wish to remove the color bleed stains from the entire cloth rather than just the spots, oxygen bleach is the way to go!

This agent is not as stringent as chlorine bleach but it does the job well and allows your cloth to look fashionable again. Oxygen bleach itself also contains hydrogen peroxide and we can quite easily understand why it is a favored agent to remove color stains from clothes.

What You Need

  • Oxygen Bleach
  • Bucket
  • Water

How to Use

  1. Fill up the bucket with water enough to soak your stained clothes in it
  2. Now add 1 cup of oxygen bleach to the water
  3. Mix it and let the solution form properly
  4. Now submerge your clothes in the solution and let them stay submerged for around 30 minutes
  5. Now take your clothes out and wash them with cold water
  6. You should find the stain gone, but if not, repeat the entire process again and again until you finally find it to be gone
  7. After that, you can just directly throw it in the washing machine, but this time be careful to separate the dark and light-colored clothes.

Things To Keep In Mind

This agent can sometimes be damaging and should be tested beforehand. Before treating your clothes with oxygen bleach, test it on a smaller area of the stain and see how it’s working.

One important step to take is to check your garment’s label and its fiber content. Fiber compatibility plays a major role in how the clothes turn out after the usage of such agents.

Don’t use this agent excessively. Even though it is not as stringent as chlorine bleach, if used in excess, it can do more harm than good and leave you worse off than before.

#3 Using Vinegar and Dish Soap To Remove Color Bleed From Clothes

Vinegar and dish soap also make a great combination to remove color bleed from the clothes.

Vinegar’s acidic properties and the dish soap’s organic solvent properties really complement each other, making them useful agents to clean the color bleed from your clothes.

What You Need

  • Vinegar
  • Dish Soap
  • Clean Rag
  • Large Bowl
  • Water

How to Use

  1. In a large bowl, add water and vinegar in a ratio of 2:1, so for two cups of water, you should add 1 cup of vinegar
  2. Now add one tablespoon of dish soap to the mixture and mix the solution well until you see bubbles
  3. Dip the clean rag in the concoction
  4. Use the rag to clean the stain. Please ensure that you only dab the stain rather than full-blown rubbing it because that would make the color bleed spread
  5. The idea is to let the rag absorb the color from the color bleed, so keep dabbing until you find the rag to be changing its color and then move on to the next area
  6. Now that your stains are gone, you should run the clothes under water to clean the cleaning solution you just used

Things To Keep In Mind

You need to be very careful when cleaning with a rag. Any scrubbing would lead the color bleed to spread more and you would be left worse off than you started with.

White vinegar is just acid and it does strip the clothes of their color when used excessively. It can’t tell the difference between the colors you want to keep or the ones you want to be rid of. Therefore, while using this chemical, you need to be careful.

Vinegar can be abrasive to your skin and eyes and appropriate measures should be taken to limit contact.

Other Agents vs Hydrogen Peroxide For Removing Color Bleed From Clothes

We have discussed quite a few agents to remove color bleed from clothes.

All of these agents have great qualities when it comes to cleaning but none of them are perfect enough to not cause any damage to your clothes no matter what the circumstances.

If we compare hydrogen peroxide with them, we find that even though it is one of the best cleaning agents out there, it does have its pros and cons. Let’s discuss them.

Pros of Hydrogen Peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide has one extra oxygen atom than water because of which it has amazing oxidizing properties. Hydrogen peroxide forms OH radicals and then these radicals act on the stains and decompose the color causing compounds of the stains.

In addition to this, hydrogen peroxide is also frequently used as a bactericidal agent. It breaks down the important component of structural walls of the micro-organisms, rendering them incapable of functioning and they eventually are killed off.

Hydrogen peroxide is widely used as a bleaching agent and the reason for its more frequent usage is that it is a mild bleaching agent, so it doesn’t really damage the clothes but it is good enough to get rid of the stains and make your clothes look beautiful again.

Cons of Hydrogen Peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide can be disadvantageous in certain instances such as when it is unstabilized, it can actually help bacteria in its catalase activity instead of destroying them.

Hydrogen peroxide, when used in excess concentration can do more harm than good because it can sometimes prove to be counterproductive for some sensitive textiles.

Therefore, the fiber compatibility of the textiles should be checked before using this cleaning agent on them.

Hydrogen peroxide is more often used to remain small stains or spots rather than full-blown color damage to the clothes because it simply isn’t strong enough to be used for that.

Will Hydrogen Peroxide Damage My Clothes?

Hydrogen peroxide is a mild bleaching agent and usually doesn’t damage any fabric it is applied on.

However, exceptions do occur and to be extra careful you should check your clothes’ fiber compatibility and first apply hydrogen peroxide to a small area of the cloth rather than treat the entire cloth right away.

Hydrogen peroxide possesses the ability to remove stains because of its mild bleaching properties. These properties are hard on the stains but do not pose a threat to your clothes’ original color or integrity.

If you’ve taken the necessary precautions before using hydrogen peroxide for your clothes, they will not get damaged at all. You can easily be rid of those nasty stains and enjoy wearing your clean clothes again!

The Takeaway

Color bleeds are the resistant stains caused by that one dark-colored garment that you forgot to separate from your light-colored garments while washing your clothes.

These color bleeds happen because the dye wants to latch onto another fabric immediately, and your light-colored clothes become its victim.

Hydrogen peroxide is the best agent to remove these stains.

Due to its oxidizing properties and bleaching properties, it makes your color bleed stains go away. Hydrogen peroxide is used to clean almost any surface, and people find it to be one useful chemical!

Do you also want to try this agent and see what it can do? Order your set now!

Faizan Khan
Faizan Khan
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