What Happens When You Bleach Cashmere (Can You Bleach It?)
Bleach is a laundry savior. It handles a lot of tough stains and kicks their butt off of your favorite clothing items making them nice and clean. You look better and feel great when you wear beautiful clothes bleach has had a hand in cleaning
Can you bleach cashmere? No, you can’t clean cashmere with chlorine bleach. It will destroy the fibers and ruin your expensive clothing. In fact, the cashmere wool fibers may dissolve on you if you use chlorine bleach to clean the stains off of them.
To find out what else happens to cashmere when you bleach it, just continue to read our article. To get cashmere nice and clean without bleaching you can try some of the home dry cleaning kits that are available for you to use.
Bleaching Cashmere
No, you cannot but there is always an exception to the rule. The type of bleach that is harmful to cashmere is chlorine bleach. It will ruin your cashmere sweaters by dissolving the wool fibers. The mess you are left with is not something you would feel proud to wear.
We are also not sure about those oxygen bleaches that claim to clean every fabric without harming them. Cashmere is sensitive wool and it may not like that style of bleach as well.
That means that even a detergent like Woolite regular is not good to use with cashmere clothing items. That brand of cleanser does contain the wrong type of bleach for wool like cashmere.
You may need to switch to Woolite dark, a cleaning product designed for denim to get your cashmere clothing clean without harming them. Baby shampoo and some dish soaps may be gentle enough to handle the cashmere cleaning duties.
What Happens When You Bleach Cashmere
Bleach has an interesting effect on wool fibers. As you know cashmere is a fine wool fabric that is soft to the touch and looks elegant. Those characteristics mean that it needs gentle handling when cleaning the clothing made from cashmere.
Dry cleaning is usually the best way to get cashmere clean and that is because bleach does not have that gentle touch. What bleach does to cashmere and other wool products is to dissolve the fibers and ruins the clothing.
Even if you dilute the bleach do not expect the results to be any different, especially if you are using chlorine bleach. That chemical solution just does not like wool or cashmere and it does nasty things to that fabric.
Before you try alternative bleach products make sure to conduct a little cleaning test first to see if that product will harm your cashmere clothing. Find enough fabric from a hidden spot and put it in the bleach and water solution first.
If it gets damaged then you know that alternative product is not made to handle cashmere or wool. You may have to find a natural bleaching agent to thoroughly clean cashmere and your wool items.
How to Bleach a Cashmere Sweater
As we mentioned earlier you should make a test run first. Cut a snippet of fabric from your cashmere clothing and drop it into the bleach solution you are going to use. The standard dilution equation is 1 part bleach to 4 parts water.
Then drop the fabric piece into the solution and let it soak for 10 minutes. When that period is over remove the piece of fabric and look for any damage to it, including loss of color.
If all is okay, fill 4 buckets with different solutions. The first bucket needs 1 cup of bleach to a gallon of water, then the next two buckets are filled with plain water and the final bucket with bleach neutralizer.
Put your cashmere sweater in the fist bucket holding the bleach for no longer than 10 minutes. Then take it out and place it in one of the buckets holding plain water and get the sweater nice and saturated. Wring the sweater out and immediately place it in the bucket with the bleach neutralizer and let it soak for 15 minutes.
After that time has expired put the sweater in the other bucket of plain water and rinse thoroughly. Then wash as usual and then hang dry in the sun.
You can replace the bleach neutralizer with hydrogen peroxide if you do not have the former solution.
How do I Whiten My Cashmere Sweater?
Unfortunately, wool and cashmere do not respond to bleach like other natural fibers. Because of that hatred for bleach, you may have a little more work to do if you want to whiten your cashmere clothing.
There is a natural way to lighten cashmere and it starts with mixing 1 teaspoon of white vinegar with every 2 cups of water. Make sure you have enough water in a sink, tub, or bucket to fully cover the cashmere item you want to whiten.
Lay the item flat in the mixture and under no circumstances ball it up, twist it, or squeeze the item when wet. Swish gently in the mixture and then let the item soak for about 10 minutes.
After that time has passed, empty the tub, etc., of the vinegar water rinsing till all the vinegar is gone. Then refill it with cool water for rinsing the sweater or other cashmere items. Make sure to get all the vinegar out of the sweater as well.
Then after that process is done, lay the sweater, etc., out flat on some clean towels. Make sure to leave an inch or two between the arms and the body of the sweater. Then let dry.
If the sweater did not come out as clean as you wanted it, you can repeat this process until it does. It is not harmful to cashmere or other wool fabrics.
Remove Color From Cashmere
One method you can try is already listed above in the how-to bleach section of this article. The word of caution that goes with that instruction is that it is a risky process to use as chlorine bleach damages the fibers and ruins cashmere and other wool clothing.
Then you can use Riot Dye color remover but the best results come when you use the boiling water on the stovetop method. That option may not be the best one you can use for cashmere. There are other ways to use this color remover and you need to follow the instructions correctly to get good results.
Those alternative methods still use hot water, up to 200 degrees F., so you should check the label to make sure it is safe to use on cashmere. The process takes between 10 and 20 minutes to complete, depending on how fast your clothing loses its color.
You can also try the natural method we have already described but that option may take a long time to do and needs to be repeated several times till all the color is gone. Then you can remove dye stains just by rewashing the clothes as quickly as possible after spotting the stain.
How to Remove Stains From Cashmere
Here are some tips to help you deal with those annoying stains that life brings when you are wearing cashmere:
- 1. most stains can be removed by rinsing the fabric under cool running water. Then use a mild stain remover to help get the rest of the stain out. Do not rub the stain remover in as you may ruin your cashmere clothing item.
- 2. Chocolate - first you need to remove any excess chocolate from your cashmere item by using your fingers, spoon, or dull knife. Then turn the fabric inside out and wash from the back of the stain. After that soak the stain in mild shampoo and cool water. Let sit for about 15 minutes or so. Then rub gently before rinsing in cool water.
- 3. Grease and makeup with grease - dab the stain with a clean cloth to get the excess off. Just be careful not to spread the stain or rub it in deeper. Then spread baking soda over the stain and let it sit for 20 minutes approx., then shake the baking soda off. If it is not all gone, then soak for a short time in mild shampoo and rinse.
- 4. Makeup with no grease - in this situation you do not need the baking soda to soak up the stain. Just pre-soak the stain in mild shampoo and then hand wash in cool water.
Some Final Words
It is best to leave bleach out of the cleaning process when you are trying to clean your cashmere clothing items. Cashmere is expensive and bleach will only cause you to spend more money than you were counting on spending that day.
Find better alternatives to clean your cashmere clothing and watch how you remove stains. Not every cleaning product is wool or cashmere friendly.
