My husband is having a problem with sweat stains on his karate clothes that are blue, the shade of blue in ink pens.
I searched online and it doesn’t seem to be chromhidrosis (the wrong areas of his clothes are discolored) or pseudochromhidrosis. He’s not taking any medications or being exposed to any sort of powdered dye or metallic substance at work.
His regular clothes do not have blue stains but he’s not really a sweaty person except at karate. His other white clothes get the normal yellowish stains on them. We switch around laundry detergents often enough that I see no possibility of that being the cause.
My two sons take the same karate class, use the same washer and purchased their outfits at the same time. They each have two outfits, each a different brand, bought about a year apart. Both sets of my husband’s have the blue stains. The kid’s don’t (young adult age kids). It has started in the last 6 months and keeps getting worse. The stains do not wash out.
Could there be a mineral in our water that reacts with his sweat only and makes the stains blue? I believe our water is high in iron and it is also softened with salt. We live in a very hard water area. I have not noticed copper staining in our home, which we had in our last home so I do recognize it.
Gotta be something specific to those two uniforms - if it were his sweat, he’d get the blue stains in his other clothing (since they’re being washed in water from the same source). No idea what that might be, unless someone got a little overzealous with the bluing when it was manufactured.
Burn my house
Steal my car
Drink my liquor from an old fruit jar…
Are you using a blue fabric softener? I’ve had that stain selective fabrics blue. Once you run ithe stained clothing thru the dryer its more or less permanantly blue in my experiance.
I don’t know how to multi-quote but I’ll try to address everyone’s ideas.
Deodorant - the one sweaty place there aren’t any stains is the underarm area. The stains are in the neck, waistband, chest and back area.
Fabric softener - he doesn’t use it.
Specific to the item - this was my first thought since it stared in the areas with heavy interfacing. I though maybe all ghi manufacturers might use the same interfacing, Since then the staining is spreading to non-interfaced areas.
I don’t think we’ll ever know. He used to wear a t-shirt under his outfit to help with heave sweating. He’s going to try that again and we’ll see what color those t-shirts become.
No one else from the karate place has this problem and they all get their outfits from the same places. I am starting to think it’s probably something specific to our water and the kid’s haven’t had the problem yet because they don’t sweat as much. Maybe the city has recently changed our water additives.
P.S. I just checked and one of the kid’s sweat stains are yellow and in the same areas as the husband’s blue stains.
Is he looking over your shoulder? OK, distract him…
…
Is he gone? All right, then. You need to face the fact that he MAY be from a different solar system. I’m just saying MAY. Don’t jump to any conclusions.
But ask yourself: Does he eat large amounts of beets? Or V8 juice (contains beets)? Does he wear crocs (check his closet-- he may not want to admit it)? Does he leave blue sweat stains? Does he react when a news report mentions “illegal aliens”? Does he cry when someone brings up “E.T.”?
If you answered yes to two or more of these questions, DO NOT PANIC. You need to quietly leave and make your way on foot to your local outlet for fishing licenses. Tell them you need the “Two Dollar Sashimi Stamp”, and that you want the paperwork sent to the Tri-County Aethetics Emporium in New Mexico. Detail your suspicions in the “other concerns” section of the form.
Return to your normal routine, but be observant. A Prof. Gerald Hackenforth will be in touch. Again, do not panic. Although most cases of blue sweat have not ended well, there is always a chance that it’s a harmless reaction of terrestrial origin.
To the OP - were both of your husband’s outfits purchased together? I’m thinking maybe it was a wonky dye lot if they’re the same brand bought together.
Have you tried bleaching them (assuming they’re white) with a whole 8-oz cup of bleach in the wash?