Seriously, I bought this shirt like three weeks ago. A nice navy blue polo. Suitable for work or casual. Wore it once or twice, then (admittedly) it sat on the floor dirty for a week or so. Picked up it tonight to do some wash - WTH, it’s got bleach stains (red-pinkish marks on the navy background), all around the bottom. They don’t scrape off or wash out. It looks exactly like when I’ve spattered bleach on colored clothing. But here’s the thing:
[ul]
[li]I haven’t washed anything with bleach for at least a couple of months[/li][li]In fact, I just moved into a new apartment a week ago. This apartment has its own washer/dryer inside the unit [/li][li]This new apartment has never been lived in before me[/li][li]I have not brought any bleach into this apartment whatsoever[/li][/ul]
What the heck?! I liked that polo, now I gotta throw it away. Any ideas what happened? Ghosts?
My daughter used a skin cream with benzoyl peroxide in it when she was a teenager, and it really did a number on the colored towels. Have you been using any skin creams or salves that could have been on other clothes that touched the polo?
I’m betting a household chemical as yet unidentified. But there are those cases that defy explanation or logic. I had a red shirt that I wore for almost a year and washed probably 20 times. One wash, with no changes in soap or anything else, it bled red over an entire load. I was always trained to do reds with black or other reds so it was no harm other than losing a favorite shirt (it looked like faded hell afterwards) but odd things happen. Case two was an amusement park shirt from our favorite park. First wash it went through it came out looking like it had been splattered with bleach. Everything else in the load was fine and it didn’t look like that going in. Mentioned it the next time we were at the park - turns out they got a lot of other people telling them the same thing had happened to them. New supplier ----- and not a good one. The shirt got replaced after the supplier got replaced.
No suggestions, but back in HS/college days, my best friend’s mom was real good with finding the imperfections in IR (irregular). She bought him a new polo that looked good. We went to a club, & whatever substance was splattered on the front not only only showed up, but showed up really well under the black lights on the dance floor. :smack:
That’s my guess. Or, since you just moved, maybe there was an errant puddle of cleaning product either from cleaning up your old place, or left from the landlord tidying up your new place. Or maybe from the lavatory at work? Do you go to the gym–lots of bleach/chlorine there.
I have used permanent markers to correct bleach spots on polo or tee shirts with great success before. Even if your shirt is navy blue, and all you can find is a black Sharpie, it will pass if the bleach spots aren’t too big.
If the bleach spots are all along the bottom edge and not randomly scattered all over the shirt, it might have picked something up from your belt, maybe? Did you buy a new belt recently?
That was my first thought as well. I’ve had face washes with bleach/peroxide in them that have not only ruined towels, but the collars of shirts. However, they don’t usually leave odd marks in the middle of shirts. Even if you don’t know what it is, it’s usually obvious that it came from your face.
That’s my guess. The landlord probably cleaned the apartment before you moved in. If they cut corners they may have just ‘sprayed something’ on the floor and it might have been bleach based. If it was recent, that’s probably the culprit. If I were you, I’d go over that area few times with clean water before you put any more clothes there.
At work, back when we used to sanitize our counters with bleach, all my my black sweatshirts had a bleach line across the front of them. Black markers did a great job of hiding them (especially to a 16 year old that really wasn’t that concerned about how they looked).
Also, regarding the mildew spray. I was surprised to find out a few months ago that some toilet bowl cleaner is just geletinezed bleach and nothing more. I figured that out because the directions explained how to add it to your laundry.
My thoughts is perhaps the shirt was damaged before you bought it and ‘repaired’ in such a way described here and returned, which then you got it and after washing whatever they used washed away.
Even if your shirt is navy blue, and all you can find is a black Sharpie, it will pass if the bleach spots aren’t too big.