Is it safe to use Clorox on COLORED towels, wash cloths, etc and if so, how much is safe to use? I don’t want to fade out my laundry but would sure like to use Clorox. I would feel like they would be much cleaner. Thanks!
This is such a great question. Depending on the type of dye that is used to color towels, some can be safely laundered with Clorox® Regular Bleach2. You can’t tell just by looking at them or what color they are if they are colorfast to bleach, but you can test for colorfastness with a simple bleachability test:
No color change means you can safely add the towels along with the other items in your bleach load! I hope your towels pass. Towels used to be more universally bleach friendly until towel manufacturers began making fewer towels with Vat dyes (great bleach fastness!), switching to Fiber Reactive dyes (not bleach fast at all). At the time of this change, most US consumers had traditional deep fill clothes washers, which don’t develop malodors in the inner workings of the machine. Fast forward 30+ years when more US consumers have front load washers. Their closed system design allows soil buildup on the inner workings of the machine that produce malodors that can transfer from load to load. Without frequent cleaning of the machine itself, towels will get smelly in these washers! I’m not sure if this is a problem for you, but just in case it is here’s how you can use Clorox® Regular Bleach2 for periodic machine maintenance (note: do this with an empty washer).
I hope this information is helpful. If you have any other questions, please send them along, and let me know how it goes with your towels. Thanks for writing!
–Dr. Laundry