Have you heard about the hack that suggests pouring a cup of brewed coffee into your washer’s rinse cycle with a load of darks will help keep colors dark? According toWikihow, you can use coffee or tea like this and it acts as a natural dye to help prevent fading. But does it really work?
Maybe not so much.Laura Goodman, laundry expert and senior scientist at Procter & Gamble, warns that adding coffee to your washer may do more harm than good. She says putting coffee in the rinse cycle *might* add some “dye-like effects to dark clothes, but it won’t necessarily keep them from fading. And with a low-water rinse, like in a high-efficiency washing machine, the coffee could irregularly stain your clothes.
So how do you keep your black clothes nice and dark? Goodman suggests:
- Using a high-quality detergent that contains “chlorine scavengers” that “lock up” chlorine molecules in water to keep them from fading clothes.
- Add a fabric conditioner to the wash to protect fibers from damage and fading.
- Turn clothing inside out before washing.
- Wash darks in cold water.
- And if your favorite black jeans are looking more gray these days, you can treat them with a fabric dye - but in a bucket or sink, not your washer.
Source:Apartment Therapy