Name: Becky

Message: How do you get bleeded dye out of a cotton shirt that has been dried? My sister washed a Disney shirt, sort of looks tye dyed but all one color, then the next time it was washed it faded all over another brand new shirt. I searched your site but can't find anything. Is there any easy way to remove the now blue spots off of the orange shirt?

The dye that ran is probably only loosely attached; hot water will help to loosen it further. So, the first step is to wash in HOT water, with some color-safe oxygen bleach or OxyBoost. If this works, but only partially, try it again.

The special detergent Synthrapol is supposed to work better at removing dye than ordinary detergent does, but only people who do their own dyeing buy Synthrapol. It's sold by the dye supply houses listed on my "Sources for Supplies" page.

Probably the nest step after using hot water and color-safe bleach would be to buy some Rit brand Color Remover. This is sold next to the little boxes of dye, in many pharmacies and grocery stores. While I do not recommend the purchase of any brand of all-purpose dye for dyeing cotton, Rit Brand Color Remover is an excellent product. It may remove the original orange dye, as well as the unwanted blue spots, so don't try this unless hot water and color-safe bleach did not work.

It is possible to use chlorine bleach instead of Rit Color Remover, but it may be less effective, and it is more damaging to fibers,

Both chlorine bleach and Rit brand Color Remover can sometimes change the color of a garment unexpectedly, though in different ways from each other, instead of removing the color. That's just a risk that goes along with trying to remove dye.

For information about setting the dye in the Disney shirt, see "How can I set the dye in the clothes I just bought? ". The manufacturer of the blue shirt that bled on the other garment was at fault, but it may be possible to save the shirt, if your sister does not want to return it.