A New Life For Your Dingy Whites

Do you have white shirts that have gotten dingy over time? And with kids, this happens a lot more often, with panties also. No matter what you try, you just can't get them white anymore? I know I have - google and google and try and try with no luck.

Well, there's nothing wrong with the shirts other than the color. So, why not change that? Dye them a darker color and they'll never be dingy again!

I decided that with a variety of dingy white shirts and panties, we needed more color selection. I bought red dye and blue dye.

I put about 2/3 of my items in the red dye. Once it was going well, I started my blue dye and put the rest of the items in there.  After both pots steeped about a half hour, I pulled out some red and blue items and set aside to keep pure red and pure blue (they would get rinsed as per the final instructions of the dye package). Then, I combined the red dye, blue dye and the remaining items. After they steeped sufficiently I removed them and rinsed.

I didn't trust my freshly dyed items in our washer, so I hand washed everything. They did fine in my dryer, however.

The only down side is the thread often won't dye because it is made of different materials. But I actually like the accent colors of the string and even waist bands of panties. I don't know how well the colors will hold after multiple washes, but since these are my kids shirts, they'll grow out of them fast enough that it won't matter for us.

Here is the final result - No More Dingy!

as you can see, I have a thing for burgundy - note the curtains hanging beside the shirts :)