What is bleaching/ruining our clothes?

10 years ago

Hi all--
OK. This is driving me nuts! For at least the past year, my clothes (and some of my husband's) have come out of the washer with big, bleached-out looking splotches and streaks. These stains are never as white or yellow as they would look if, say, I had just spilled straight bleach on them. Rather, the splotches are most often pink and sometimes a tan/orange (if the garment is black). At first I thought that this might be caused by the chemicals used for treating our water well. We live in the country but none of our neighbors who share this well have the same laundry problem.
My second notion was that perhaps dog urine and/or dog urine stain remover was causing this (we have a very stubborn pup who is marginally house trained and goes on "her" towels). But, I have been cleaning the washer by running hot water and vinegar through a cycle between her towel load and our clothing loads. This has not helped either! Oddly, some fabrics such as denim as well as older clothing are not/less affected but newer and especially brighter items are getting bleached out over and over. Any ideas are very much appreciated!

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Comments (5)

tennblondie78
10 years ago
Is anyone in your family using anything that contains Benzoyl Peroxide, like acne medication? That will do exactly what you describe. Believe me, I know, my husband has ruined towels and sheets with ProActiv. :(
hethrliles
Original Author
10 years ago
Not that I've been able to pinpoint. It's just my husband and I and neither of us use anything with peroxide. I suspect that the Nature's Miracle we use for the dog stains might have it as an ingredient but I've been cleaning the machine after I wash any dog towels. How did you guys remedy the problem with the ProActiv?
Cavimum
10 years ago
Are you using liquid detergent? If so, is it added via a dedicated detergent dispenser, or before the clothing is added to the water, or after? ( I had some ugly streaks and ruined a lot of fabric yardage and garments when I added liquid Tide on top of the clothes, in an old TL washer. I now know enough to figure it was the OBAs in high concentrates hitting the dry fabric! )
hethrliles
Original Author
10 years ago
I used to put the detergent on top but I have been very careful lately to add the liquid Gain we use to the water and let the washer fill most of the way before adding clothes. Items are still coming out streaked. We are beginning to think there is something wrong with the washer--a Kenmore--but it's hard to imagine how the machine could be doing this to our clothes!
angiepangie
10 years ago
I had this issue too, when I went to an HE machine. Google it.