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’s an interesting question OP, but this is Reddit so most people will just give you advice on how to avoid it happening or how to fix it when it does.