How to get colour run out of clothes

When any non-colourfast items are washed at temperatures that are too high, the dye bleeds out of the fabric. This happens most commonly with newer items on their first few washes. You might think that certain colours tend to run more than others – we’ve all heard the tale of the red sock that ruins a white wash – but it actually depends on how well the colour pigments in the dye bind to the fabric of the clothes.

If they have a fixer or mordant, that binds them the less likely they are to run.

One common method of dyeing fabric is ‘salting out’. When the clothes are dyed, salt is added to the water which encourages the dye into the fabric. But if the dye isn’t fixed to the fabric using a fixer or mordant it runs straight back out when you wash your clothes.

Clothes that are made with synthetic fibres where the colour was added at the same stage the fibres were being created, are the least likely to run. 

You have a couple of options to stop colours running when you do your wash: 

Use a Colour Catcher laundry sheet 

With a Colour Catcher laundry sheet you can wash all your clothes together without the need to worry about colour run accidents.

All you need to do is place the sheet in your wash when you wash a load of clothes. There’s no need to sort your colours. During the wash the laundry sheet effectively traps colours that bleed into the water – any dye that runs goes onto the sheet and not the clothes.

Each laundry sheet is made of 100% naturally derived fibres that are treated with special ingredients that act like a magnet to absorb and trap any loose dye during the wash. You’ll see this on the sheet at the end of the wash.

Now you can wash your colours together for less sorting, fewer wash loads and lower bills.