Name: John
Message: Hi Paula:
    I was washing a rugby cotton shirt, white coller and light blue (Pacific Blue ?) base color.   Unfortunatly I used some clorox to help clean the white collar.   It didn't bother the blue color around the white collar, but when I hung the shirt to dry I noticed a small bleached out area on one of the sleeves.   I guess I must have got a drop on the sleeve, and though I thought all the shirt was wet maybe that spot was still dry thus the clorox bleached out a spot about the size of a nickel.

I was wondering do you think I could buy some dye, near that shade of blue and just spot dye that area?   All it needs to be close to the same blue, being it is such a small area.

Thanks for any suggestions.

For this problem I usually prefer the marker solution. If you were to use dye, you'd better use fiber reactive dye , and certainly not a hot water dye such as all-purpose dye, but even with the best dye it is very difficult to match the color of the surrounding area without inadvertantly also dyeing and darkening the previously undamaged areas. 

This question has been answered in the FAQ section of my website. Please see "How can I fix the bleach spots on my favorite clothing?".

The new bleach pens that are being sold in grocery stores these days appear to be an ideal way to carefully target bleach applications to prevent this problem, though I have not myself tried them for this purpose. It would still be necessary to put the shirt in a washing machine that is prefilled with water and a bleach neutralizer such as OxyBoost, immediately after bleaching.

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