So, I have an odd dilemma with two pieces of clothing I own:
- Vintage 1982 dark green 100% cotton Atari promotional Centipede t-shirt.
- Modern 2018 dark blue 100% cotton denim button down shirt from Uniqlo.
While both of these items were made decades apart, they both share an amazingly annoying attribute: They both bleed their dyed color like crazy.
I can’t wear the Atari t-shirt anymore (too small) but I would like to wash it and make sure the dye doesn’t bleed out anymore. The denim Uniqlo shirt seems like a selvedge material, and even the white buttons on it show signs of the dye bleeding out.
If I simply soak either of these items in a sink in warm to hot water without any detergent, I can pull them out as little as 15 minutes later and the water is dyed. Deep enough it almost seems as if a frozen ice op was dropped in the water. Washing in a washing machine doesn’t seem to help.
What can I do to stop the dye from bleeding out like this? I have read articles like this one and this one online but I seem to get more confused than anything else. I’m not too worried about garments fading as much as I am worried about dyes leeching out. I simply want to stop the bleeding!
Should these 100% cotton items be soaked in salty water? Or vinegar? Or something else?
I mention that these were commercially dyed (by the manufacturer) because some commercial products for after-market dyeing exist to prevent those items from bleeding. But I doubt they would help in the case of items that are commercially dyed on a factory level.