Bleached Bandanas

Loving these soft faded bandana colors and believe it or not, they all began as bright primary colors. The magic happens with bleach and sunshine!

Before bleach

What you will need to gather:

100% cotton bandanas (mine were ordered from Amazon)

Regular household bleach

Rubber gloves

Buckets for bleach water and rinsing water

Sunshine

Bleach water and rinse water

I did the entire set up outside and it was so much easier than running outside from the kitchen sink with bandanas dripping bleach water. I also suggest wearing clothes you don’t mind getting splashed with bleach.

Mix one part water with one part bleach in the first bucket and fill a second bucket with water. I used 2 rinse buckets so I wouldn’t have to change the rinse water as frequently.

No need to wash the bandanas before bleaching them.

Beginning with the lightest colors, immerse the bandanas into the bleach water (15 to 30 seconds for the lighter colors, 1 to 2 minutes for the darker colors). Spread them in the sun and watch the magic happen.

Once you like the color, immediately rinse the bandanas in water to stop the bleaching. The lighter colors took only 30 seconds to a minute while some of the darker colors took 4 to 5 minutes.

Rinsing in water

Once I was happy with the bleached colors, I put them all in the washing machine and ran a quick cycle with soap to remove any remaining bleach.

Side by side comparison

A few things I learned:

the white ones were a disappointment - could not get the black ink to fade at all, even with extra time in the bleach and sun.

if the color is not faded enough, put them back in the bleach and try again.

the navy blue ones fade to a lovely tan - that was a surprise as everything else faded to a lighter version of their original color.

germicidal bleach is not the same thing as regular household bleach - it does not work (I think because it is already diluted)

Bleached Bandanas

And now I’m off to embroider on my lovely bandanas!