Fixing running colours with newspaper, water and sugar

When you want to fix the colours in a garment, the normal thing is to soak it in cold water with salt or vinegar as these ´trap´ the pigments and help the process of ´fixing´ the colour in the cloth. Hot water and sugar, on the other hand, do the opposite: they weaken the pigments of colour in the cloth, in such a way that if the colour runs, they allow it to leave the space where it was ´fixed´ in the cloth: the newspaper absorbs this dye which is leaving the cloth.

Procedure:
When a colour has run in a garment what you have to do is: soak the garment for some minutes in warm water, sugar and some sheets of newspaper. Afterwards, we rinse the garment thoroughly in cold water with a good dose of white vinegar. This technique eleminates the colours which have left their place in the garment but it does not restore the colours that have been lost.

Four solutions for running colours

Before washing your garment make sure it is colour safe. If it’s the first time you’re washing it and it’s a strong colour (red, hot pink, green, deep blue) it’d be better to wash it by hand the first time. If, for whatever reason, the colours have run, we offer you four possible solutions:

If the stain happened recently (a few hours ago) an effective method of removal is to soak the garment in hot water with sugar and some newspaper.

The next best method is to soak the garment in water with egg shells.

Another trick is to soak it in salty water with some ice cubes.

A final method is to soak it for a few hours in cold milk, changing the milk a few times until the stains have disappeared.