Name: Diane

Message: My daughter washed a recently tye dyed shirt with other white shirts and the red color stained the other shirts in the wash. Is there a way to remove these stains? I tried soaking with Oxy-clean in hot water but it hasn't worked. The shirts aren't all white, so I really can't bleach them without removing the other colors. Do you have any other suggestions? Thanks for your help.

Did she use proper tie-dyeing dye, such as Procion dye or from a good tie-dyeing kit, or did she use Rit dye?

I asked my daughter what type of tie dye it was and she wasn't sure.  She is a camp counselor and the kids tie dyed t-shirts as one of their projects.  We are assuming its probably the Rit dye.  Do you think it will come out of the other shirts?  Please let me know if you have any suggestions for removing it.  Thanks again for your help!

First try soaking with hotter water and then washing in hot water. Dye stains from the laundry will often come out when soaked in very hot water (140°F or above). Oxyclean will probably have no effect, good or bad.

If that doesn't work, I recommend that you buy some Rit Color Remover. This product is gentler than bleach. I do not recommend the use of Rit dye on cotton, but Rit Color Remover is an excellent product. It's most effective on the stovetop, but far easier to use in the washing machine, so I recommend the latter. You may need to use two boxes at once in the washing machine.

Rit Color Remover might remove some of the original dye in the shirts. You don't know until you try it. If hot water does not work, though, the stained shirts are probably unusable, so it's worth a try.

Another option is to apply bleach only to specific parts of the shirt, then quickly rinse and then neutralize with hydrogen peroxide or Anti-chlor. Unlike liquid bleach, the Clorox Bleach Pen can be applied with great precision. The only problem is making sure to rinse it out without spreading the bleach onto the parts of the shirts that you do not want to bleach.

All-purpose dye functions very poorly for tie-dyeing. As a general rule, anything that has been dyed with an all-purpose dye, such as Rit dye, should be hand washed separately in cold water. Rit dyed clothing is not safe to throw into the laundry with other clothes.

To make Rit dye safe to wash in the washing machine, you can buy a commercial dye fixative called Retayne. This product is available in your local quilting supply store, if you have one, or by mail-order.

A better choice is to use a good tie-dye kit, instead of Rit dye. The Procion type dyes found in a good tie-dye kit are permanent, unlike Rit dye, and are fixed with washing soda rather than hot water. Once the unattached excess dye has been washed out, it is safe to wash Procion-dyed clothing together with any other clothing, even whites, even in hot water. It is very different from Rit.

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