Optical Brighteners and Color Fading

[mercer]

I've been told that, interestingly enough, optical brighteners can actually cause bright and dark colors to fade over time. But don't the dyes in most clothing already contain optical brighteners? Since regular washing would normally wash away the brighteners, it would seem to me you'd need the detergent to replenish them with each wash. And as a result, I don't see how detergents without brighteners would help prevent clothes from fading; one would think it would have the opposite effect. Can anybody shed some light on this?

 

[tolivac]

Could it be BUILDUP of the OB's can cause "fading" by hiding the colors?Just a thought.

 

[liamy1]

Yes

To me, over time OBs will cast a whitish hue on DARK clothing.

Over here in the UK where we have colour care detergents on the market: some with OBs and some without OBs, its handy to have both:

For light coloured clothing that would benefit from brighteners (but not bleaching from regular detergent) OBs are handy.

For darks, where no bleaching or brightening would be wanted, then a detergent without OBs is better

 

[mamapinky]

Same for me, detergents with OB'S give my darks a dusty look, but its fine for whites Cheryl

 

[mrboilwash]

In the latest German consumer test of liquid color detergents only one product out of 19, a store brand called "Domol Color" contained OBAs.

Compared to the highest ranking color detergent (Henkel Persil Color Gel) it was even marginally better at cleaning but didn`t make it into top rankings because of its bad color preservation.

And now for the interesting part!

Color care dark fabrics:
Persil (no OBAs): Satisfactory..............Domol (with OBAs): Satisfactory

Color care light colors:
Persil: Good...........................................Domol: Satisfactory

Color care pastels:
Persil: Good...........................................Domol: Sufficiant (worse than satisfactory)

Every single one of these 19 products even those dedicated for black fabrics did "satisfactory" on dark fabrics even the one with OBAs !
Pastels colors however changed significantly after repeated washes with Domol color.

For those interested in the test results (in German), here`s the link.
Just click on "Artikel als PDF" to download the complete test. It`s free of charge because it`s an older test from 2013.

http://https//www.test.de/Fluessigwaschmittel-19-Waschmittel-im-Test-4494903-0/

 

[mrboilwash]

Personally I don`t like OBAs even if they don`t give darks a faded look. We have plenty of choice here to avoid them.
They are suspected endocrine disruptors, cannot be removed 100% in waste water treatment and are bioaccumulative in the environment.
I even prefer OBA free for whites because I believe as long as washing conditions are good there shouldn`t be much of a reason to combat yellowing. Just an unnecessary extra chemical.

On the other hand if I lived in the states of even in France where OBA free usually means niche products I`d probably just adopt to the use OBAs.

 

[lordkenmore]

I've also heard that OBAs may be a problem for those with skin problems.

>even in France where OBA free usually means niche products

And that's a huge problem here. The only OBA free detergents easily available now appear to be the "green" detergents (e.g., Seventh Generation). These typically cost $$$$, and are probably not as powerful as regular detergent. At least, not in my experience. (Although, obviously, as I've stated before, it may not necessarily have to be either/or. Given that my typical load is about "freshening", Seventh Generation and the like are good enough. And there's nothing to stop me from keeping some Tide around for really stained loads.)

AFAIK, just about every major commercial brand has added brighteners. The one exception may be one formula of Cheer powder, but that stuff is hard to find, at least in my market.