Adding bleach to your wash is great for keeping your whites white. However, even white garments made from natural fibers like linen and cotton eventually turn yellow over time if exposed to too much bleach.
If you usually hang your clothes out in the sun to dry, the UV rays also add another layer of bleaching. This can cause chlorine-bleached clothes to turn yellow. To get rid of yellow stains from white clothes, here are a few techniques you can try.
- Pour some white vinegar on the yellow stains and leave it to soak for 10 minutes. Rinse it out with cold water.
- If that doesn’t work, consider using a bluing agent instead. Adding this old-fashioned laundry product has proven to be quite effective in whitening discolored clothes.
- The other method you can use involves using a fluorescent dye to reflect UV light. This, in turn, leaves your clothes looking whiter than they were before.
- The final technique is to soak your whites in oxygen- (not chlorine) based bleach for at least an hour. Be sure to follow the directions on the packaging as soon as you confirm that the product is safe for your textile.
Keep in mind that yellow bleach stains on wool, silk, spandex, and polyester whites are permanent. Bleach causes irreversible damage to the fibers on those fabrics, so no amount of bluing or oxygen-bleach soaking can restore them to their original shade of white.
