I had a favorite t-shirt which was an olive green color, until one day I noticed that it was brown. I have no idea when it changed color–just one day I pulled it out of my dresser and the thing was brown.
I figured it was due to washing, or something, even though I don’t use bleach or anything.
Well, yesterday I bought a pair of olive green jeans. And they were still green this morning when I put them in the wash.
I didn’t notice if they had changed between washer and dryer, but, when I pulled them out of the dryer, brown they were.
Again, no bleach was involved or anything like that.
Is this something that happens and that people have noticed happening? Or am I just going crazy?
Badly dyed, or improperly-mordanted clothes will lose their color prematurely. I suspect though, that the culprit may be the pH of your wayer. Acids and alkalis can have a dramatic effect on colors, either neutralizing color, or causing them to shift in intensity or hue. Some fabrics are first dyed one color, then over dyed[I believe it’s called top-dying] with another color to produce a desired shade. Olive green, to my eyes, is green with a bit of brown and yellow in it. Perhaps one or more colors are leaching out, due to acidity or alkalinity used in your local water supply, leaving the color you now see.
FWIW, I have a couple of pairs of olive-green socks that have turned brown on the soles over the last few years, but nowhere else (the ankles and the tops of the “feet” are still green.) So it’s not just you. I always assumed that in my case, it was some reaction with my sweat — but pH sounds like a reasonable explanation as well.
In the very room, under the very lighting conditions under which it looked green, namely, the washroom, it, subsequent to having been washed and dried, acquired a brown appearance.