Why does my washing machine leave bleach spots on my clothes when we never use bleach?
Question:I keep getting spots on my clothes that looked bleached out. We don't use nor do we own BLEACH or anything of the sort. We only use fragrance and dye free detergent. How is this possible? Getting frustrated with ruined clothes and towels.
Answers:
One possibility is that your detergent is sitting in that spot and is affecting the fabric and the dye there. Basically too much detergent in one spot causes a buring effect that looks like it has been bleached.
Cure spread out your detergent and/or mix it in the water as it is pouring into the machine (can not be done with a front loader washer)
If a front load washer utilize a low suds detergent (others cause problems).
I don't know the answer, but this keeps happening to me too, and I only use dye-free detergent and no bleach
It might be the fabric softener you use-if you get it directly on some clothes before it is mixed with the water it will do that.
3 idea's come to mind-
1) Was it a used washing machine before you got it? The former owner could have used bleach in the machine.
I would try to run a cycle (with no clothes in it) with Hot water and 1 1/2 cups vinegar- put the vinegar where the bleach would go.
That should clean it out
2) The other thought I have is that you have a high acid in your water. You could get your water tested to see what minerals are in the water. If you get your water from the city they use a form of chlorine and bromine to purify the water so it could be that the concentration is too high and the water treatment plant is not testing at the correct levels.
3)It could be that there is bleach in something you use to clean your house (such as the bathroom cleaner) and it is getting on your clothes then, when you go to wash them the water is spreading the bleach to your other clothes in that wash cycle.
I hope this helps
Good Luck
I had the same problem. I couldn't figure out where the bleach spots were coming from. No one in the family but me uses the bleach and I even hid the bottle.
What I finally discovered was this. I have wire shelves over my washing machine, where I store my household cleaning products. One of those plastic bottles had a very small leak. The vibration from the washing machine probably had caused the wire shelf to wear a spot thru the plastic. It started leaking when I was doing laundry, and stopped when the vibration stopped. It took me weeks to figure this out.
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