White nike dri fit shorts changing color

I bought a couple pairs of the nike 'showdown' shorts in white, and recently washed 1 of the pairs and noticed after it totally changed shade of white! I did soak it in cold water to remove a small blood stain, cause I had a cut on my finger when playing, then put on (quite a lot) of this stain remover, then washed, and it came out looking a blue-tinged white. Weird. Anyone have this happen to them? Is there a way to get them back to their original shade? I rewashed but still the same, comparing them to the other pair they look totally different now

Thanks

All my woven white shorts (Nadal, Delpo shorts) get dingy after a few months of use. But the blue-tinge might be your detergent or something.

It's like a white over-grip. It'll just get more off white the longer you use it.

Re-wash with detergent and a few ounces of Sodium Tripolyphosphate.

Lex said:

Re-wash with detergent and a few ounces of Sodium Tripolyphosphate.

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And where does one find this sodium tripolyphosphate? You think it'd work on dingy white shorts? I think the dingy-ness is set in, though, since I throw all my stuff in the drier.

You can find STP at your local hardware store. It's used for deck cleaning, siding, etc.

It has "phosphates"....the stuff that was banned from household detergents many years ago due to excessive algae growth in the water system.

If this doesn't work, you likely won't recover these shorts to the pristine white. The optical brighteners may be gone.

XFactorer said:

All my woven white shorts (Nadal, Delpo shorts) get dingy after a few months of use. But the blue-tinge might be your detergent or something.

It's like a white over-grip. It'll just get more off white the longer you use it.

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Yeah all whites do get dingy, but this was really weird cos they changed shade completely within 1 use/wash. I keep close tabs on my white tennis gear. Well here's the deal, could be four things that caused it:

1. Soaked in cold water to get bit of blood out

2. I mark all my tennis balls with my initial and some had been freshly done before play, a little bit of ink got on my hands/overgrip/shorts by the pockets. I dunno if this came out and affected wash, it's happened before but usually no prob

3. Accidentally left in blue-black headband in short pockets but did wash at 30degrees so weird for it to transfer

4. Used some stain devils all-round stain remover on the blood/ink, but kinda went crazy with it, rinsed before putting in machine but dunno if its residue could discolour

I was gonna try some bicarbonate of soda first but I'll look into the sodium tripolyphosphate if that doesn't work. Sorry for the weird laundry related thread, I just recently splashed on a load of flashy gear and am pretty anal about them staying in good nick This is the prob with white gear though...

Cheers guys

The blue color might be from the water in your house. Do you have soft water in your house like from a water softener? The minerals which make water softer can make things blue. The tiles in my shower and my bathtub start to turn light blue between cleanings due to the soft water.

BreakPoint said:

The blue color might be from the water in your house. Do you have soft water in your house like from a water softener? The minerals which make water softer can make things blue. The tiles in my shower and my bathtub start to turn light blue between cleanings due to the soft water.

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we have naturally soft water in my area (I did a test with one of those indicators a while back), so I don't think we have any water softeners, at least I don't put any in the machine!

*Val* said:

we have naturally soft water in my area (I did a test with one of those indicators a while back), so I don't think we have any water softeners, at least I don't put any in the machine!

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It doesn't matter if the water is naturally soft or made soft by adding additives in your building/home. Soft water contains more minerals and those minerals could be turning your white shorts blue.

BreakPoint said:

It doesn't matter if the water is naturally soft or made soft by adding additives in your building/home. Soft water contains more minerals and those minerals could be turning your white shorts blue.

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Oh right, I thought soft water had fewer 'things' in it as opposed to hard water which has more chemicals/minerals, therefore requiring more washing powder in the wash (since washing powders recommend greater dosage for harder water on the box)

But yeh this is definitely something to think about... though I'd already washed them a fair few times and they had stayed pristine. It seems the other whites in that load also got blue-tinged and turned a little dingy.

Thanks a lot for the response

PS While we're talking laundry do you guys wash nike dri fit socks with softener? Nike specifically recommend no softener for their general gear, though thorlo specifically does recommend it for their socks. Is it okay for socks or still no?

*Val* said:

Oh right, I thought soft water had fewer 'things' in it as opposed to hard water which has more chemicals/minerals, therefore requiring more washing powder in the wash (since washing powders recommend greater dosage for harder water on the box)

But yeh this is definitely something to think about... though I'd already washed them a fair few times and they had stayed pristine. It seems the other whites in that load also got blue-tinged and turned a little dingy.

Thanks a lot for the response

PS While we're talking laundry do you guys wash nike dri fit socks with softener? Nike specifically recommend no softener for their general gear, though thorlo specifically does recommend it for their socks. Is it okay for socks or still no?

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Soft water contains more sodium and potassium but less calcium and magnesium. The addition of those other minerals may be why things turn blue. BTW, I'm just talking about the water itself (which is sometimes treated by municipalities or towns or homes to be softer) and not the addition of a fabric softener in your laundry. In fact, I do not use fabric softener when I do laundry of any kind at all.