How do you remove sunscreen stains that turned pink after soaking in chlorine bleach?

[launderess]

No offence meant

But issues lie in not knowing what you are doing exactly, then throwing various things at a wall to see what "sticks".

Problem is each treatment that doesn't work can (and very well may) be not only failing to remove marks, but causing them to become more permanent.

Chemistry (organic) is a professional launderers best friend, as such applies here as well.

What you've got is a "combination mark", one that is made up of a few or several different substances with each responding to various treatments.

Sunscreen marks are caused normally by substances much like red wine and cumin abhor alkaline pH, but respond to acids.

In commercial setting there are two ways of dealing with such marks.

First involves what your dry cleaner or small laundry likely would try; individually pre-treating each mark ensuring it is removed before going onto the wash. The other is an intensive "reclaim" program using strong chemicals, hot to very hot water with *many* cycles. This allows them to treat a large amount of marked linen at once rather than individually.

Idea is to first either remove the acid stain using like, (oxalic acid or similar), then using a high pH (alkaline) bath to counter the acid and remove substances that respond (fats, oils, grease, etc...). The latter can be simply one step/bath or washing in a detergent with a strong pH level. A bleaching cycle may follow, then many rinses. Nearly all this (except for last final rinses) are done in hot to very hot water temps.

Happily enzyme treatments often are effective in breaking down "acid" based stains like tannin, cumin, etc.. Long as they are done properly and given a chance to work (long enough contact time).

Chlorine bleach soaking is nearly universally useless. Marks able to be removed by that substance respond in five minutes or less. Hotter the water temperature faster the bleaching action. Longer periods simply allow greater contact time and can (often do) result in weakening or outright damaging fabrics.

http://www.thelaundryforum.com/forums/chemicals/pink-stains-mainly-at-summer-time-t1342.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/smarter-living/mutard-ketchup-berry-dirt-grass-sweat-stains.html

https://lenoir.ces.ncsu.edu/2013/08/mysterious-orange-stains/

Marks caused by sunscreen are *very* common and there are scores of hit pages on Google or elsewhere. Thing is to follow advice that will work instead of old wives tales.

 

[mrboilwash]

Problem with following advice found on the internet is that given advice is often totally contradictory.

nytimes.com recommends an (acidic) rust remover or lemon juice and salt to takle avobenzone stains and warns against any kind of bleach. What about other UV filters like octocrylene ?
They also don`t mention any particular further (alkaline) treatment to tackle the remaining oils other than wash as usual.

lenoir.ces.ncsu.edu recomends a long soak in a combination of an enzyme containing detergent and oxygen bleach which translates in an alkaline treatment. They even recommend chlorine bleach for whites if the fabric can stand it. Not a word about trying an acid first...

 

[launderess]

Octocrylene

Is not known to cause marks on textiles to same extent as avobenzone. While it may happen with former, the latter is far more of an issue, hence scores of internet hits regarding that substance and staining of textiles.

At least for the lemon juice and salt (wouldn't be my first choice for stain removal, but to each his or her own), NYT piece does recommend laundering "as usual" afterwards. While an alkaline pH is good for removing marks with oil/fat base; modern liquid detergents in theory may be able to cope as well.

A good wash and one (or more) rinses should remove much of the acid/salt from fabrics. But will give you the directions should clearly state any textile treated with lemon/salt should be rinsed *very* thoroughly.

I put "lemon/salt" in the "old wives" category as it is one of those things people swear by, but don't know how damaging it can possibly be to textiles.

It has been known since early in prior century that using lemon and salt to remove marks can weaken and or otherwise damage fabric. This especially if not rinsed and neutralized properly afterwards.

 

[saz1]

@ Launderess...

Thank you for your input, although you did sorta say a whole bunch of stuff but offered no real solution. Your post started off promising...and then just lead to a dead end.

"But issues lie in not knowing what you are doing exactly, then throwing various things at a wall to see what "sticks"."

Do YOU know what i should be doing "exactly"?

I didn't randomly come up with a concoction to remove the stain. I searched on Google and asked here.

"What you've got is a "combination mark", one that is made up of a few or several different substances with each responding to various treatments."

"Combination mark"? Googling it gives the following definition:

Combination Marks are graphics with both text and a symbol/icon that conveys the brand image that you wish to create for your company or organization.

Nothing about stains or laundry. Matter of fact, determined to learn about how professional launderers deal with stains, i Googled for any content online with the words Combination Mark and laundry/stains. Result: zilch.

But yeah, i get it, marked as in stained and combination as in different stains. You should patent the phrase, in case you haven't already. Anyway..."several different substances with each responding to various treatments" you say?

So what are those substances?

"Sunscreen marks are caused normally by substances much like red wine and cumin abhor alkaline pH, but respond to acids."

Got it! "substances much like red wine"...so tannin stains. They don't like to be treated with alkaline cleaners. So baking soda and washing soda are useless. They respond to acid. Great! But wait...aren't citric acid and oxalic acid... well...acid? How come they didn't respond to them?

"Idea is to first either remove the acid stain using like, (oxalic acid or similar), then using a high pH (alkaline) bath to counter the acid and remove substances that respond (fats, oils, grease, etc...). The latter can be simply one step/bath or washing in a detergent with a strong pH level. A bleaching cycle may follow, then many rinses. Nearly all this (except for last final rinses) are done in hot to very hot water temp"

At this point im starting to wonder if you even read my posts. It's exactly what i did. I first soaked the clothes in oxalic acid (acidic). After that i washed them with washing soda (alkaline). All hot water.

Basically your proposed solution is to hit it with everything on the PH chart...and then for good measure, use bleach. This most probably being due to not knowing what we're exactly dealing with. Sounds a lot like a case of "throwing various things at a wall to see what "sticks".
Is it actually a tannin stain...hence the acid treatment? In that case why a 2nd treatment with an alkaline solution? What "exactly" is the "substance" in the sunscreen which would require an alkaline treatment? Hell, what "exactly" is the "substance" in the sunscreen which requires an acid treatment?

You then say "Chlorine bleach soaking is nearly universally useless" and proceed to link an article which advices to use chlorine bleach to remove sunscreen stains.

You later say "Marks caused by sunscreen are *very* common and there are scores of hit pages on Google or elsewhere. Thing is to follow advice that will work instead of old wives tales."

So which advice is the one that works?
And wait a min...oxalic acid and washing soda is old wives tales? Didn't you just suggest them. But lemon juice - which is what you linked - is not?? I'm confused.

I am aware that sunscreen stains are *very* common and that there are scores of hit pages on Google. But thats not the issue is it? It's not that the problem does not exist...it's that there seems to be no info on a solid fix for it. There are a lot of people asking for a solution, a lot of (well meaning) people offering solutions...which are unfortunately ineffective, and a lot of people offering explanation of what the problem is and what is being done wrong to tackle it, without offering a solution.

I'm willing to bet, however, that this thread is the best there is on the subject on the whole interweb.

 

[launderess]

Combination mark/stains are those caused by substances made up of more than one component. That is black coffee marks are different than coffee with dairy (cream, milk, half and half). Sauces, gravies, certain liquid/cream cosmetics and so forth often present "combination" stains because they are made from diverse ingredients.

In a perfect world everything would come out in the wash using just one formula; sadly this isn't always true. In which case we are left with dealing with each individual component of a stain on its own terms. Rather like peeling back layers.

In this case the substance in question needs an acid to remove; then you have the base (oils, fats or whatever else that went into said sunscreen) which will need surfactants and or base pH to shift.

Yes, noticed you did use oxalic acid in a soaking bath. But do not know at what strength. It could also be very well possible a good amount of the staining substances have been removed, and you now need to deal with remainder.

From first linked article above:

"I had the same situation a few days ago. Soaking in a strong hypochlorite solution seemed to make the stains darker, this approach was abandoned. I next tried hydrogen peroxide which also seemed to have no effect. My 3rd attempt yielded a direction to move in. I had made a paste of our laundry detergent and applied it directly to the stain, results could be seen within 2 minutes. Since our detergent contains TAED and PC to produce PAA in-situ, I soaked the linen in detergent at 4 x normal strength with PAA at 20ml/l for 45 minutes follwed by a regular wash. All traces of the stains were removed."

 

[saz1]

Launderess...

Again, a whole bunch of stuff that lead nowhere.

"In this case the substance in question needs an acid to remove; then you have the base (oils, fats or whatever else that went into said sunscreen) which will need surfactants and or base pH to shift."

How do we know what the substance needs to remove when we don't know what the substance is?

"Yes, noticed you did use oxalic acid in a soaking bath. But do not know at what strength."

PH 1.3.
Do you know what strength i should be using?

"It could also be very well possible a good amount of the staining substances have been removed, and you now need to deal with remainder."

And what exactly is the remainder?

I'd read that link where someone posted on a form about the paste made from a detergent which contained "TAED and PC to produce PAA in-situ"

TAED is Tetraacetylethylenediamine...but what is PC, and PAA? What detergent did he use? What detergent contains TAED and PC to produce PAA in-situ?

 

[mrboilwash]

Basically every European "Universal" type powder detergent contains PC (sodium percarbonate) which I think when activated with a catalyst like TAED will release hydrogenperoxide and peracetic acid (PAA).
Since you have already tried Oxyclean and bleach without any success my first thought was forget about the paste made from detergent, but on second thought maybe the peracetic acid might be what you`re looking for because it is an acid.

On the other hand powdered detergent is full of strong alkaline stuff like washing soda so I wonder how much of the peracetic acid gets neutralized immediately.

 

[saz1]

Alright...new stains. I thought avobenzone was the culprit. I bought sunscreen without avobenzone, yet i still got stains, nice and clear too.

Now what? Since many said I'd set the stain by bleaching...well now I got fresh stains that haven't been touched. And the strange part is that the shirt hasn't even touched water. I don't get how it stained? Perspiration? It can't be, because the stains are orange, not yellow. Bright orange, almost pink. So perspiration reacted with the unknown chemical in the sunscreen which is causing the stain?

So how do I tackle this? Ideas?