Washing Black/Dark Clothes - Preventing Fading?

[Pinotpleasure]

I’ve been looking in various supermarkets for the past few weeks for ‘Surf Perfect Black’ liquid detergent. I assumed that now that Summer is over and we’re tending to wear mostly black or dark clothes that it would be back in the stores.

No such luck. I even did an online chat today via www.surf.co.uk and discovered that it’s been discontinued :(

I do also use Persil or Ariel liquid for colours (since it’s seemingly impossible to find powder for colours in the shops) but they have brightening agents and I fear that my black items will eventually turn grey.

What alternatives are there? I can only think of the clear liquid for wools/silks/delicate items.

(If anyone would like to do an online chat with Surf and request that ‘Perfect Black’ comes back, I would be extremely grateful!)

From googling Woolite does a wash for dark clothes/denim

And Ecover has one too

Use a non bio and turn your clothes inside out before washing and drying.

And only wash at 30 degrees or less

Almat Colour detergent from Aldi - they have gel, powder, tablets, and liquid sachets.

I wouldn't have though using non bio instead of bio would make a difference. They are likely to both contain optical brighteners.

I hand wash mine - it's a faff, but I love my clothes, so I think it's worth it.

Ecover do a liquid for darks. I think I also saw Dreft liquid for darks in Waitrose too.

Wash inside out. Dry inside out. Use colour powder.

They will still fade but the above prolongs the process.

Sainsburys, Waitrose and Lidl still do colour powder.

I was any particularly cherished dark items inside out, at low temps, with Ariel or Persil colour detergent (and not a huge amount of it), and air dry inside - this seems to stop the worst of it

Best thing is to reduce no of times you wash things:

• for tops I wear the thin uniqlo t-shirsts which sometimes means you can get another wear, skirts only get washed if I drop sometihing on them, jeans can go a few wears too, vs daily washing for everything in summer

I use Persil for colour clothes and never put darks out in the sun.