How to bleach white woolen items: methods and useful tips

Products made from white wool look elegant, but as they are worn, they gradually lose their former attractiveness, acquiring an unpleasant shade of yellow or a dirty gray color. Caring for woolen clothing requires a special approach, since delicate natural materials are easily damaged by aggressive substances. At the same time, there are a lot of recipes using available ingredients and ready-made household chemicals intended for bleaching wool. To make your clothes look fresh again, it is useful to know how to bleach white woolen items without ruining them, and what effective methods should be used.

Baking soda

Almost everyone has this tool. However, this method of bleaching is more of a preventive nature. Housewives recommend using soda if very noticeable yellow spots have not yet appeared on white clothes.

To bleach wool products with this popular product, items must be soaked in 5 liters of water, the temperature of which should not exceed 30 °C, and then add 100 g of soda to it. The soaking time in this case is approximately half an hour. In addition, it is advisable to add a couple of drops of ammonia to the solution.

After completing the main process, when the clothes take on a fresh look, you need to rinse them in clean water and wait until they are completely dry. Thanks to such simple prevention, woolen products will retain their pure white color longer.

What to do if things get dyed during washing

When shedding is already evident, it is important to provide first aid to things. It is worth remembering a few simple rules:

The bleaching procedure must be started immediately so that the paint does not have time to penetrate deep into the fibers.
Before a rescue operation, faded items of clothing should not be dried or ironed.
You cannot use boiling, as many things will lose their original color and appearance forever, all that remains is to send them into disrepair.
Before choosing a bleaching method, study the properties and purpose of the fabric. Can it be subjected to chemical bleaching, or will regular laundry soap help?

The first aid in saving your favorite T-shirt or pants is to wash it again with the addition of bleach at a temperature of 60 degrees.

Before putting a white item in the washing machine, rub it with a slice of lemon or 6% hydrogen peroxide, this will help remove the pigment. Another way to quickly save a faded item is to soak it in a solution of dishwashing detergent for 12 hours.

If the procedure does not give positive results, you should proceed to proven methods and chemical bleaches.

Salt

To quickly whiten a white men's sweater, you can use salt. Although this is not the most effective remedy, it will help remove fresh yellow stains from the item. In addition, the wool fibers will eventually become a little softer. Housewives bleach light woolen clothes following these simple instructions:

Pour warm water into a 5-liter basin and pour 200 grams of table salt into a plastic container.
Stir the resulting translucent solution thoroughly.
Immerse a sweater or other item in the salty liquid several times.
Place the product in a basin for 5-7 minutes.
Pull the item out and wait until the water has completely drained from it.
Immerse the woolen product again in the salt solution. This step must be repeated several times.
Rinse, wring out and dry clothes.

However, there is another method for bleaching white woolen items using salt. To do this, you need to make a saline solution and soak your clothes in it. As a rule, 5–6 hours are enough for the products to become snow-white. Then you need to rinse woolen items in water of the same temperature. If you are not satisfied with the result of whitening, then you will have to repeat the described process.

For the lazy, busy and hasty

If you don't like methods that require soaking, combine the bleaching process with machine washing. Buy oxygen bleach and add it to the powder when washing. Proceed as written in the instructions for the purchased product.

Oxygen bleaches are quite effective, do not damage the structure of materials, and therefore are quite popular. Their only drawback is the cost; good bleach is not cheap.

Washing powders “for white” often contain optical brightener. This is a kind of “deceiver” that does not interact with the fabric in any way, but creates a visual bleaching effect. However, the presence of optical brightener in your powder will not prevent your laundry from turning gray or yellowish, so periodic soaking is still necessary.

Choose the right method to return whiteness to white clothes and use it correctly to keep your clothes looking flawless.

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Hydrogen peroxide

This medical solution is a universal remedy that has good whitening properties. Hydrogen peroxide is safe, so it can be used to clean old stains from wool items. Knowing the properties of this product, you can whiten things in this way:

Dilute 100 g of solution in 5 liters of water, the temperature of which should not exceed 30 °C.
Immerse woolen clothing in a bowl with the resulting solution.
Wait 5-7 hours.
Lightly wring out the product, removing most of the moisture, and blot it with a dry towel.
Dry the woolen item by placing it on a table or other flat surface. White woolen items should not be placed on magazines or newspapers, as the dye will easily be absorbed into the fibers of the material.

This is a simple and effective option for whitening white woolen items, since the items can be soaked overnight and simply rinsed and dried in the morning.

How to choose bleach in a store?

In addition to traditional methods, you can bleach white fabric using special products that are sold in stores.

Bleaching agents can be:

Optical. When using such substances, bleach particles settle on the fabric fibers. After drying, they give things extra whiteness.
Chlorine-containing. Their use is not safe for delicate fabrics. These bleaches are destructive to fibers.
Oxygen. Oxidation of the surface of the fabric occurs, due to which things are cleaned, disinfected and become snow-white.

Bleaching agents should be selected according to the type of material that needs to be restored to whiteness.

Lemon acid

Bleaching woolen items with this substance is a simple task. Before bleaching a white woolen hat, you need to find a basin that will hold 2 liters of water. To clean this item from yellowed stains and give it a fresh look, you need to add 2 tbsp to the container. l. dry citric acid. Then you need to mix the solution and dip a woolen hat into it. Housewives are advised to wait 5-7 hours and then rinse the headdress thoroughly.

There is one trick that will help you bleach clothes evenly and effectively with citric or boric acid: woolen items must be turned over occasionally while soaking.

Chalk

Using this limestone you can remove stains from a white men's sweater. However, using chalk, you can give woolen items a snow-white color at home. To whiten a sweater, you first need to buy 500 g of chalk. The following steps include the following simple steps:

Grind the chalk and pour it into a container with warm water (for example, a basin or bucket).
Stir the resulting solution.
Place a bulky woolen sweater in a container.
Stir the solution every 10 minutes. This must be done because chalk does not dissolve in water, i.e. its particles settle at the bottom of the container.
Drain the solution.
Rinse and dry the item.

To prevent a woolen sweater from stretching while drying, you need to hand-wring the product with light pressure. Then you need to lay it out on a clean and dry surface (for example, on a terry towel), while trying not to pull out the neck, sleeves and bottom. It is recommended to iron a wool sweater with an iron without steaming.

Ammonia

In everyday life, this product is sometimes used to remove stains from woolen clothes. The most effective way to lighten white things with ammonia is if you combine it with other active substances. Housewives have come up with a simple and effective way to bleach a wool sweater with ammonia, hydrogen peroxide and vinegar:

Pour 6 liters of water into a suitable container and add 10 ml of ammonia.
Stir the resulting solution for 5–10 minutes.
Place the sweater in a container with the prepared liquid.
Prepare the second composition: add 5 ml of hydrogen peroxide and 1 ml of ammonia per 1 liter of clean water. Stir the resulting mixture thoroughly.
Add 1 tbsp to the solution. l. vinegar.
Remove the wool item from the first solution and wring it out.
Transfer the sweater to a second container.
Wait half an hour.
Rinse and wring out the sweater.

However, there is another method for bleaching white woolen items with ammonia without using additional products. In this case, you need to mix 100 g of ammonia in 10 liters of warm water and soak the clothes in the resulting solution for half an hour. The next step is to machine wash woolen items with the addition of conditioner and an additional rinse. It is recommended to dry things in the fresh air or in a well-ventilated and warm room.

Household chemicals

If you don’t want to make your own products for whitening and stain removal, then you can buy special chemical compounds. They are chlorine-, oxygen-containing and optical. Each product has distinctive features:

The use of chlorine-containing compounds is an effective bleaching method. However, you need to work with such solutions carefully, as they can ruin the item.
The use of oxygen-containing preparations is the best option if you need to return the white color to products with colored designs.
The use of optical substances is a way to disguise dark plaque thanks to special granules.

“Belizna”, a chlorine-containing household chemical, is considered a good bleach for wool. To prepare the solution, you need to stir 50 ml of the specified product in 7 liters of water. Then you need to immerse the woolen item in the resulting liquid for 30 minutes, while the product must be turned over periodically. To wash the fabric from “Whiteness”, the clothes need to be rinsed several times. However, you should remember: it is better to use bleaches that contain chlorine in cases where other methods have not brought the desired result.

The main thing is that there is a special mark “for wool” on the packaging of household chemicals. In addition, before bleaching a white wool scarf with a colored insert, you need to carefully study the product label. It should have a triangle-shaped sign on it. If this symbol is crossed out, it means that the wool product cannot be bleached.

Restore black clothes

A color restorer for black things is a solution of salt with a few drops of special paint for fabrics or regular ink for black writing. After washing, the clothes are rinsed in this solution. The novelty of black fabrics is maintained by a solution of tobacco, which is prepared at the rate of 5 grams per 1 liter of water. Clothing that is difficult to rinse or is not recommended to get wet, for example, some outerwear, can be treated with a brush dipped in this solution. Writing ink of a different color is used for things of the corresponding shade.

To restore clothes that have faded in the sun, special fabric dyes are used, sold in household chemical stores. Each package contains detailed instructions for using the coloring composition. It is necessary to carefully select the exact dose of the composition in order to get into the original shade of the product. A very interesting way to restore brightness is to wash faded clothes with faded items of the same shade.

Useful tips

When using machine washing to bleach woolen items, it is recommended to observe the following conditions:

use chemicals suitable for these products;
the water temperature should not exceed 30 °C;
set the spin speed to low speed;
It is advisable not to use machine drying.

In addition to these tips, you can soak things in a soda solution for 15 minutes before washing. Woolen items should be dried on a flat horizontal surface, placing them on a towel or any other material that absorbs moisture well.

Recommendations

You can keep your white wool sweater looking nice and clean by following a couple of helpful tips:

Buy a good powder that is suitable for woolen items. It is best to purchase a liquid special agent, for example.
The maximum and also optimal temperature for washing woolen items is 40 degrees.
It is better not to squeeze the wool or do it at minimum speed.
Woolen clothes should not be hung to dry as they will stretch. It is best to lay the sweater on a horizontal surface, first laying it on a material that absorbs moisture well.

If folk methods and special means are powerless, then you can go to a dry cleaner, because they employ professionals who can restore clothes to their former appearance and cleanliness.