Dear Dr. Laundry, I found your website very informative, and seek your help. I carefully washed the laundry with pastel colors and my husband’s brand new and favorite t-shirt came out with light blue stains caused by bleeding. I soaked it in Oxy Clean, Clorox for Colors, Borax and Lestoil to no avail. What do dry cleaners do? I appreciate any suggestions.
Dye transfer can be difficult to remove as noted by the variety of products you have used. The issue is you basically dyed the spot blue and then probably dried it which set the color. You don’t say what color the t-shirt area was before it became blue. If it was white, I would recommend a couple of thoughts:
Dry cleaners use solvents for their cleaning; this may not be appropriate for a cotton t-shirt. Usually, if it is cotton, the dye will slowly be removed with each subsequent washing. You can accelerate this by washing in hotter water.