Washing… one of those chores that if you’re not concentrating 100% when you’re doing it, it can all go horribly wrong.
Thankfully I have never mistakenly put a pink sock into a white wash, or a white t shirt into a dark wash. So far anyway. The problem, though, with splitting everything into washes with similar colours, is that you end up doing loads of seperate loads – meaning your washing takes longer.
Colour Catcher is a product from Dylon that claims to get rid of that need… with this you’re supposed to be able to put darks, lights and whites in the same wash, without getting any colour transfer between garments. You’re also supposed to be about to put a new item of clothing in with everything else without the need to wash it on its own the first time just in case the dye comes out in the wash.
I was sent a box of Colour Catcher to try, and so I thought about what would be a good test. I decided a worst case scenario would be a brand new pair of cheap brightly coloured socks and a plain white t-shirt… in the same wash… makes me shudder! Here:
The socks cost 75p per pair and were the brightest colours I could find. I was hoping for a solid red pair really but this was the best I could get. I took the above photo before I put everything in the wash together with three sheets of the Colour Catcher (the instructions say that if you’re mixing colours use one sheet, but if you’re washing something new then use two or three). I did the wash on a normal 40 degree wash, and waited patiently to see what might happen.
As you can see, I still have brightly coloured cheap socks AND a plain white t-shirt… I’m impressed!
The above photo shows the Colour Catcher sheet before and after the wash. On the left is one of the the crisp unfolded sheets straight from the box, and on the right the creases damp sheets that were used in the wash. You can see that the sheets on the right are indeed darker, which I guess is the dye that came out of the socks but ended up on the sheet instead of on my white t-shirt.
Now ok this was by no means a scientific test (I mean, where was the control test, where is the quantitive data?!), but it does make me much happier to put some of my different coloured clothes into the same wash with less fear of ruining them. Since I got sent this product to try I’ve found many of my friends already use it and are very happy with the results, which makes me think I’ve been missing out! Have you used Colour Catcher? What are your experiences?
Corrine
You should try washing your saswe t-shirt with the White one- they leech colour- you should have seen my colour catchers after the first time I washed the spares!