Ecover - 'bleach' marks

[chelseamorning]

Over the past year or so, I've noticed 'bleach' marks have appeared on the odd item of clothing following washing. The marks are that pale orange colour you get with bleaching products. We don't use bleach so I'm not sure what's happening. I thought it was perhaps just poor quality clothing losing dye but now, looking back, it's happened on expensive items as well as cheapos.

Has anyone had a similar problem or perhaps can shed any light as to what may be happening? We use Ecover washing detergent and softener, BTW.

we use ecover too but never had bleach marks from it. could it be that bleach is getting onto your clothes while, for example, cleaning the bathroom, then when you put your clothes into the wash, this causes the marks?

I've thought of that, RR. No, it's not possible as we generally don't use bleaching products.

I even found some marks on the back of my DS's t-shirt last night when ironing it. Can't explain them.

Ecover lumps together apparently and cuases it, some random man told me about it when I took my ecover to the till. he suggested I got the liquid version instead and since then no bleach marks!

Look at this thread to search for bleach and you will see 2 others have the same problem.

I'm sure a google search might uncover more too!

*too

Ooh! I have this problem with Fairy Non-Bio. It has been driving me bananas... it only seems to happen to expensive things, too. Grr. It can't be bleach in our case either, as we don't generally use it.

I am actually using the Ecover liquid, navyeyelasH, as I don't like powders. Thanks for the link. More confused about green products now though!

Sorry you're having a similar problem, Dottoressa. It drives me nuts too! Completely random and, yes, generally on new or expensive things!

I've just found some info on some US sites.

A couple of suggestions are:

1. to shake the washing liquid in order to mix the cleaning agents.
2. to pre-mix the washing liquid with water and then add that to the reservoir in your washer.

Apparently there are bleaching agents in some face creams and antibacterial soaps/cleansers. These can also have the same bleaching effect on clothes.

the new non-bio Ecover has laundry bleach integrated into the powder. The bleach can clump together and cause bleach spots. The old Ecover was bleach-free. I don't use Ecover anymore. Use Simply instead.