Setting Tea or Coffee Dyed Fabric

I am not good with painting cloth , but i do expert in the Unintentional coloring ,,,, [hahhaahhah] if you don`t want it to stay fast IT STAYS for ages ,,!!!! mirjam

IME, accidental rather than intentional, coffee stains more permanently than tea. I would try boiling a hemmed test piece in the coffee and then washing it repeatedly to see how much it fades.

Lizzy

I dyed some elastic with both tea and coffee and I liked the color of the coffee better. The tea faded out immediately. The coffee has stayed its' color through maybe a dozen washings. AK in PA

That's what I'm worried about.

We're just back from our Arctic cruise, for which I bought Spouse ten beautiful and expensive shirts. We threw out four bin bags of his old ones and other clothes which were too bad for any other use.

The food on board was mostly fabulous. I only had one coffee, it wasn't good, but he had a few.

Q. How can you REMOVE coffee stains from cotton shirt cuffs, please?

Mary

Hope you had a fabulous time!

Welcome back! And congratulations on having such a good clear out before you went.

Well, when DH has got coffee / tea on his shirt / handkerchief, I wash as normal but make sure I add plenty of "oxiclean" or whatever the brand name is of the oxygen based cleaning stuff I've got in the cupboard - they all tend to have "oxi" in the name somewhere... Doesn't always come out first go, especially if he's used his handkerchief to mop up a spill (men!), but does come out sooner rather than later.

If they are just light spots - I wouldn't worry to deeply. If they are industrial clean up of coffee spill type stains, I'd pre-soak the shirts in Oxiclean or similar in accordance with directions on the tub before washing.

I did some research on the 'net the other night on setting tea and coffee dyed fabric, and from what people had written, had come to the conclusion I probably want to coffee dye rather than tea - it's browner apparently! Just avoid getting alum, vinegar or salt on your husband's shirts! I know I don't have to warn you about not using a tumble dryer on them!

Regards (and HTH)

Sarah

That's not what he said - but he's forgotten now and is accepting that what used to be his 'best' shirts must be used for working in.

Hmm. I've no idea if we have anything with 'oxi' in the name ...

Somewhere I have a tube of something which says it's for stain removal. Never used it, this could be a good time :-). Trouble is, I've washed and ironed the shirt and it's in his new 'best shirt' drawer.

a) we haven't a tumble dryer

b) I wouldn't put those beautiful shirts in one anyway!

We had one when the children were young - in the sixties and early seventies - it was ideal for making sure their uniforms were wearable on a Monday morning - but I wouldn't thank you for one now. They impart a certain undesirable je ne sais quoi to the fabric.

And there's little chance of getting alum, vinegar or salt on the shirts :-)

It does, thanks.

Mary

Well, it could be, depending what stains it is intended for! I hope that ironing the shirt hasn't "set" the coffee stain accidentaly.

Which is exactly why I already knew I didn't have to warn you about putting washed and still stained clothes into one! I only got one a couple of years back about 3 days before DD was born - and just as well we did, otherwise we wouldn't have coped. I hardly ever use it now, but it may see use this winter as we are expecting DS to join the family soon.

Well, I did my coffee fabric dying today, and made an error of rinsing it before drying the fabric - I may have washed a bit too much colour out.... You remind me though that I want to iron the fabric very hot before washing it once in the machine before using it. Let's hope my iron sets the colour well enough to survive the washing machine.

Hope you get your stains out.

Sarah