How To Stop Clothes From Bleeding Color - In Indian Cotton (Episode 2)

After publishing Episode 1, I tried a questionnaire on Instagram Stories on what people do to prevent color bleeding. Most people answered they use salt or vinegar. Other tips received were:

• Comfort Fabric Wash
• Dyson SOS Colour Run (“It doesn’t stop colour running but fixes the damage”)

Thank you very much y’all, for answering!!

Continued from Episode 1, I report you about the result of the experiment I did on:

• Colour catcher sheet
• Colour fixer

as the methods on how to wash coloured clothes which are losing colour, and also to avoid color transfer to other clothes.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated by any of the makers of the products which I used in my experiments. 

Colour Catcher Sheet I Bought
There are several colour catcher sheets available in India for pretty reasonable prices. As far as I saw in reviews, they didn't seem to be very different in quality. So I bought this one this time.

(The box had been broken during the delivery, but no damages in the papers)

The size of the sheets is like this:

Colour Fixer I Bought
There are several colour fixers sold in India as well. But some were for hobby dyers. I chose this one to start with.

There was no materials/ingredients of Mahavir Colour Fix written on Amazon product page nor on the bottle, so I asked the maker Mahavir Industries. Their answer was:

-   This is their proprietary product and hence they can't share the ingredients
-   But the product is neutrally balanced and safe for the skin. Only basic care is required (e.g. not to be ingested, keep away from children, avoid contact with the eyes...) just like general household products.

Since the effect can differ in products, I am using capital letters as "Colour Fix" indicating only this Mahavir Colour Fix (not general colour fixers) in this post.

Experiments!
OK, let's do this!
This time, in the 200ml of ordinary-temperature water, I put:
-     A piece of colour catcher sheet
-     Colour Fix
-     Nothing

One sheet of colour catcher is used for one machine wash, so I put 1-inch wide piece for 200ml of water.
Colour Fix is used "a cap per a litre of water", so I put 1/5 cap of it in 200ml of water.

Then, I put the infamous Devil's Cloth in the glasses.

Colour Fix instructs to soak the fabric for 30 minutes. Colour catcher sheets are used in a machine wash. So I decided to soak them for 30 minutes this time.

(I should have done so instead of two hours last time so that I could compare everything in the same condition...) 

Anyway, the experiment's started!

After 30 Minutes
After 30 minutes, the glasses looked like these: 

And I took out Devil's Cloth and the piece of colour catcher sheet.

Wow.

Since I soaked only for 30 minutes, the color bleeding and the transfer of the color is less than the last time.
But still, the one with Colour Fix was obviously different in the colour of the water and the amount of transferred colour. It was astonishing.

You can see that the colour catcher sheet has absorbed the colour, but the colour was still transferred to the white cloth.
I saw several sites saying that it's not 100% effective for very dark coloured fabrics, so colour transfer might not be perfectly avoidable for my Devil's Cloth. Or, is it possible if I increase the amount of the sheet? I decided to check again.

As for Colour Fix, I decided to experiment again after drying the same piece of Devil's Cloth, to check whether:

-    Once soaked in Colour Fix, the colour is "fixed" and wouldn't bleed any more?
-    Or, every time you wash the fabric you need to add Colour Fix?

I briefly soaked the Devil's Cloth piece in water before drying as per the instruction.

Additional Experiments
This time, I experimented not by comparison but 1 and 2 below individually.

1.   With A Bigger Piece Of Colour Catcher Sheet

I prepared a new piece of Devil's Cloth, and added a piece of the colour catcher sheet which is twice the size of the last time. 

2.  Same Cloth Soaked Again In Pure Water After Using Colour Fix

After drying the Devil's Cloth which I used with Colour Fix, I soaked it in the water without adding Colour Fix.

And soaked 1 and 2 for 30 minutes.

After 30 Minutes

1.   With A Bigger Piece Of Colour Catcher Sheet

Hmm. Even with a fairly bigger piece of colour catcher sheet, the colour was still transferred.
My conclusion is that I would be scared to use it for precious clothes though it's working to a certain extent.

2.  Same Cloth Soaked Again In Pure Water After Using Colour Fix

Astonishing result again.

Look at the colour of the water in the glass. NO colour has bled. Of course no more colour was transferred to the white cloth.
It means the colour is fixed when soaked with Colour Fix one time. This is amazing!

Even Used Colour Fix For A Fabric For Products
I had a fabric for making MIRCHI KOMACHI products which I failed to pre-wash recently.
The colour came off and ruined the white parts made by Shibori technique.
I washed it in the water again and again, wishing the colour comes off from the white parts, but they remained pink.
I bought the same fabric and pre-washed it with Colour Fix.
I got it right this time! White remained white.
You can compare:

I was very very happy to meet this Colour Fix. I can rest assured that the colours of our products won't bleed and get transferred once I pre-wash them with Colour Fix.

Conclusion
Thank you very much for reading Episode 1 and this Episode 2 of "How To Stop Clothes From Bleeding Color" blog series.
As you can see obviously,
-   Salt, vinegar, colour catcher sheets are effective to a certain extent but one time per fabric is not enough
-   Colour Fix (mind you, I know only about Mahavir Colour Fix) is effective like 95% and one time per fabric is enough

If this blog series helps some of you and your beloved clothes, I would be very happy.
Please give me any feedback or further information in the Comment section below!

P.S.
When I bought Mahavir Colour Fix in Amazon, I asked a question on the product page whether one-time use is enough or it's required every time I wash fabric.
After publishing this blog post, I received an answer from a fellow customer.
This person said, "Not every time. Use it after every 12-15 wash will keep garment look good for longer periods". 

Addition On March, 2022
Now it’s been 2.5 years since I wrote the text above.
I had been using Mahavir Colour Fix for the fabrics for MIRCHI KOMACHI items with utmost faith.
But last month I found out that it’s not available anywhere. I wrote to “the vendor” on Amazon, but received no replies. I couldn’t even find the website of Mahavir Industries.

I needed to find an alternative urgently. I want to share with you what I found.

So these are 2 alternatives I tried this time.
One is ASTRO PLUS Fabric Color Fixer

Another is Vedcare Fabric Color Fixer

This time again,
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated by any of the makers of the products which I used in this additional experiments, either.
I purchased them on my own, and experimented solely for MIRCHI KOMACHI products and an updated blog post ;)

The products I received, as you can see, look way more home-friendly than chemical-look Mahavir Colour Fix.
The product descriptions of them share exactly the same sentences in huge part. Obviously one of them copied the other’s text without even rephrasing!
Both say (with exactly the same sentences) that the product is non-toxic and after-use water can be even given to plants.

Well, let’s check out how they do their job!

Again I use Devil's Cloth.
Astro requires ½ cap for 4 litres of water, and VedCare 40 ml for the same.
Compared to Mahavir’s 1 cap (bigger than Astro’s cap) for 1 litre of water, the required amounts are way less.
This time I added 1 teaspoonful (around 5 ml?) each for 200 ml of water, wondering if such a small amount really works.

Both the products slightly smelled, the same weird smell. This fueled the suspicion that one is a generic of the other lol.
Same as last time, I soaked each cloth in water for 30 minutes. This is the result:

Even less colour bled than using Mahavir Colour Fix! 

After drying the cloth, they looked like this. The colour hardly shifted to the white cloth.

Wow.

The bleeding was so little that I became anxious if I have used a wrong cloth instead of Devil's Cloth. It's been 2.5 years since I did the previous experiments with Devil's Cloth, I might have mixed up with some other cloth.
So I made an additional experiment of soaking the same cloth in the water without fixers.

Here’s the result!

Yes, this is surely the infamous Devil's Cloth.

So the conclusion is, that both colour fixers are very effective and reliable. Yey!
The description says that colour is fixed after 3-4 uses. But they work brilliantly in the first use, enough for using on the fabrics for MIRCHI KOMACHI.

This blog post has been gaining a lot of page views. Looks like many people are searching for the solutions for the bleeding colours of clothes. I suppose this addition helps more people.

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Bonus Video

I came across this video on an amazing fabric from Japan.
Oshima Tsumugi is the name of the most expensive Kimono. This much I knew. But I didn't even know that "Oshima" refers to Amami Oshima, a subtropical island which is everyone's dream holiday destination.
It's amazing to see that the highest grade Kimono is born in the nature of such a beautiful small island, along with the excessive amount of work.