Wash black laundry & prevent fading
Black is the predominant colour in many wardrobes. Whether it’s chic suits, the little black dress, nice lingerie or socks: Black looks elegant and always works. However, it’s anything but elegant when the dark laundry fades over time and the once deep black becomes a dull grey. This is often due to incorrect cleaning. We therefore explain what you should bear in mind when you wash your black laundry.
4 December 2023 • 5 min reading time
Your favorite dark items deserve the best care! Find out how to wash black laundry properly so that it stays like new for a long time.
Cleaning black laundry hygienically and protecting the colours at the same time is not difficult with the right procedure. We explain how to properly wash black pants, bras and shirts, as well as delicate black garments.
To ensure that black laundry stays black for a long time, choosing the right washing temperature is essential. The maximum temperature can be found on the care label on your clothes. However, this temperature is usually not necessary, especially for rarely worn trousers and tops. To preserve the black colour, you should choose the lowest possible washing temperature.
Dark colours are best preserved at up to 30 °C. You don’t need to be afraid: Light soiling comes off reliably even at such low temperature. Pants and socks in particular should be washed at a temperature of at least 40 °C. To prevent fading, our next tips are suitable.
Dark laundry easily stains lighter-coloured items during washing. By only putting black or dark clothes in the washing machine together, you prevent the rest of your light-coloured laundry from discolouring. You also protect your dark-coloured laundry, as the black pigments can only settle in other dark-coloured items of clothing during the wash cycle. In the best-case scenario, the dark colours of your clothes will even be intensified by washing them with other black items of clothing.
In addition to the right temperature and colour sorting, the detergent you use to wash your black laundry is also important. Although there are special detergents for black garments, a normal colour detergent is always sufficient. To avoid white deposits on your black laundry, it’s best to use a liquid colour detergent.
Delicate detergent can also be beneficial for delicate items of clothing, such as black blouses, lace lingerie or dark jeans. In any case, you should not use heavy-duty detergent, as it contains optical brighteners and bleaching agents. Fading would be inevitable! To remove stubborn stains and large areas of dirt from black laundry, our next two tips are suitable.
A normal wash at 30 °C is often not enough to make heavily soiled items of clothing such as pants and socks hygienically clean. Instead of choosing high temperatures and harsh detergents that will make your black clothes appear grey over time, you can pre-treat your dark laundry before washing.
Soaking clothes in a mixture of vinegar and water is a very effective and gentle alternative to chemical cleaners. Mix the required amount of two parts lukewarm water and one part vinegar, e.g. a ratio of 2:1. Depending on the degree of soiling, you can leave your laundry to soak in it for 30 to 60 minutes before putting it in the washing machine.
Did a toothpaste stain or another light-coloured stain land on your black clothes? No problem! Simply brew a cup of strong coffee or espresso and wipe the spot with a dark-coloured cloth. The heat has a stain-removing effect, while the black coffee also colours the light area slightly and makes the stain invisible. Make sure that the coffee is not too hot when you apply it, especially to delicate textiles.
Whether or not you can tumble dry your black clothes after cleaning always depends on the materials and their sensitivity to heat. If you find a circle in a square on the care label of your laundry, tumble drying is not a problem.
If this is not the case, you will find other drying instructions on the label. In particular, a horizontal bar in the top left-hand corner of the square symbol is not uncommon for black laundry. The bar means that you should dry your laundry in the shade or indoors.
Why? If you hang your wet black laundry in the sun, the UV ray may cause it to fade – an effect that can be utilised for stains in white clothing. However, if you want to be on the safe side with your black laundry, avoid direct sunlight if possible.
Do you have a few black items in your wardrobe that have had their day? While discolouration of light and white laundry is usually irreversible, you can do a lot to prevent the faded look of black laundry. How about dyeing your clothes yet black again, for example?
You can find special textile dyes at the drugstore that you can use to dye your laundry black or another colour of your choice. To do this, put the colour in the drum of your washing machine. Now wash the faded laundry according to the manufacturer’s instructions. If the specified temperature exceeds the maximum temperature of your laundry, follow the instructions on the care label.
In addition to chemical textile dyes, you can also refresh slightly faded black garments with coffee or black tea. Simply add 2 cups of the liquid to your black laundry in the washing machine and be surprised by the result. Just like after dyeing with fabric dye, you should wash your laundry again with a sensitive colour detergent to remove any colour residue.
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