Color-Safe Bleach & Brightening: How Laundries Make Garments Look Brand New

In the daily operation of the laundry shops, removing the regular stains is only a basic task. The issues that white clothes turn yellow or dull after multiple washes, and the color of colored clothes has decreased, are more challenging. This phenomenon directly affects the beauty of the clothes, and is the key for customers to judge the professional capabilities of the laundry shops.

Color-safe bleach laundry powder and brightening laundry powder are professional-grade solutions specifically targeting these issues. Scientifically understanding their working principles and applying them correctly is the key to restoring clothes.

Color-Safe Bleach

The core of color-safe bleach is adding the oxygen-based bleaching agents, such as sodium percarbonate, to high-quality laundry powder.

● Principle

Different from the strong irritancy, the oxygen-based bleaching agents can release active oxygen in hot water, which is over 60 degrees Celsius. Active oxygen can effectively attack and break down the chromophores in stains by oxidation, so as to “bleach” colored stains (coffee, red wine, fruit juice, and collar yellowing) into colorless or water-soluble small molecules. It acts mildly and does no severe damage to fibers like cotton, linen, and polyester. It is also relatively safe for dyes of most colored clothes with good color fastness.

● Temperature

The active level of oxygen-based bleach relies on the temperature. The key temperature for the best effect is over 60 degrees Celsius. The activity of the solution at low temperatures is low. As a result, laundry shops should choose hot water washing programs when using the color-safe bleaches.

● Applicable objects

Most colored clothes with good colorfastness and white textiles that need to be improved can be treated with color-safe bleach. However, the color-safe bleach should not be used on delicate protein fibers like silk and wool.

Brightening Laundry Powder

The brightening powder is mainly for solving the optical yellowness of white clothes. Its core is the addition of fluorescent brighteners.

● Principle

The fluorescent brighteners can be attached to the fibers of the textiles. When the clothes are exposed to the lights with UV lights, they can absorb the UV lights, which cannot be seen by human eyes, and transform them into visible blue fluorescence. This blue can mix and compensate with the light yellowness which is reflected by the textile surface, which forms a white light so as to remove the yellowness visually and make white clothes seem cleaner and whiter. For colored clothes, the improvement of overall brightness can also make the colors brighter.

● Duration of the effect

The effect will gradually decrease with the rise of the washing times, so the brightening laundry powder should be used regularly to maintain the bright appearance of the white textiles.

Collaborative Application Strategy

Color-safe bleach and brightening technology can be collaboratively used to treat clothes that are severely yellow and have pigment stains. 

● Color-safe bleach first 

Use its oxidative ability to completely decompose the impurities that cause yellowness. 

● Then brightening 

After removing stains, the fluorescent brighteners can be attached to clean fibers evenly and have the best optical whitening effect.

Scientific Guideline and Risk Avoidance

● Application scenarios

- Color-safe bleach

It is suitable for yellow spots on collars and cuffs, coffee stains, tea stains, and other local pigment stains, as well as overall yellowish and dirty white fabrics.

- Brightening powder

It is suitable for white textiles that are overall dull and lack whiteness, or colored clothes that need to improve the brightness of their colors.

● Temperature and programs

- When using color-safe bleach, people must heat the water to ensure the water temperature is over 60℃ to activate it. When dealing with stubborn yellow stains, people can use hot water to soak them for 20 to 30 minutes.

- A complete rinse is very important because it avoids chemical residues.

● Risk avoidance

- Test first

Do a color fastness test first on the conspicuous area of the expensive clothes or colorful clothes.

- Never use them on silk and wool fabrics

The oxidation of the color-safe bleach and the attachment of the brighteners may all cause damage to the silk and wool fabrics.

Kingstar Washing Machine

The stable and replicable effect of color-safe bleaching and brightening requires advanced and professional laundry equipment. Kingstar industrial washing machines SHS-2025 perfectly meet this requirement.

● Precise temperature control system

Kingstar washing machine SHS-2025 has a highly precise temperature sensor and an intelligent heating control system to accurately reach and maintain the set washing temperature.

The high temperature above 60℃ required to activate the color bleaching or the low temperature to protect the clothes can all be precisely controlled. This ensures that the effective components work in the best environment and avoids the failure of bleaching caused by insufficient temperature or damage to the clothes caused by excessively high temperature.

● Programmable washing programs

Laundry shops can set the washing programs freely according to different requirements for linens. 

For example, set an enhanced program for heavily yellow linen: pre-soak, high-temperature main washing, multiple rinses. This ensures color-safe bleaches have enough reaction time to completely remove residues.

● Strong water flow and complete rinse

Kingstar industrial washing machine SHS-2025 has a high-volume waterfall-style water flow, which can accelerate the dissolution and dispersion of laundry powder. It also ensures rapid and large-scale displacement of wastewater during rinsing so as to efficiently and completely remove chemical residues.

Conclusion

For modern laundry shops, color-safe bleaching and whitening technologies are a helper for improving service values and responding to the high-end washing requirements. Knowing the chemical and optical principles behind them, mastering the precise applicable scenarios and strict temperature control, and relying on professional laundry equipment, which can provide stable and reliable washing environments like Kingstar washing machine SHS-2025, is a complete scientific chain for laundries to achieve the effect of clothes being “as bright as new”. Only by transforming experience-based operations to scientific management can a professional brand image be established in the fierce market competition.