I mistakenly washed some mostly white towels with something red, now I have several pink towels. How come dye washes out of the original clothing so readily, but will now Not wash back out of my towels?

Question

It seems that the dye was lossely bound to the original clothing, but has bound much more tightly to my towels. There is no sign of the pink fading after several more washes.

Edit to add: I’m not looking for advice on how to get them whiter again, I can cope with pink towels! I am just curious as to why this happens.

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

It only takes a tiny amount of dye for us to pick up that the shade has changed, whereas for something to look vibrant, a lot of dye needs to be used – even if you washed the original clothing a thousand times, it most likely wouldn’t lose enough dye to become whiter than what your towels are now.

The tiny amount of dye can also very easily sit in the fibres of your towels where they’re more difficult to remove.