This month sees the first of my challenges as a member of the Vanish Blogger's Club. Ordinarily I am someone who steers away from white clothing (due to my general inability to keep clothes clean!) so the number of items of white clothing in my wardrobe amounts to... one. During February, to celebrate London fashion week, Vanish sent me over a white Karen Millen shirt. Very nice, I hear you say, but there was a twist...
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| Day One - Grey! |
...My white Karen Millen shirt had been pre-treated. This shirt was not so much white, as light grey. Vanish challenged me to use Vanish Gold for Whites to bring it back to life.
Vanish Gold for Whites claims to be able to make whites upto three shades whiter than they were in their worn, greying state. The instructions on the packet of Vanish Fold for Whites makes it quite clear that you can expect it to take around 5 washes for clothes to show this three-shades improvement but I was really pleased after the very first wash; I didn't pre-treat the shirt, I simply bunged it into my normal white wash and added one scoop of the Vanish Gold powder and yet the shirt was clearly at least one shade whiter.
The cynic in me wondered quite how they had managed to "grey" the shirt in the first place so I had also added a few of my own, more challenging white items into the wash including a tea-towel (that normally gets washed in a dark wash), a hand-towel and lots of Lara's school polo shirts. For every item in that wash, I could see a difference after just one wash. The most noticeable of all was the tea-towel. I've no need to have a pristine white tea-towel but it was interesting to see the difference it made.
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| After the first wash - already more than 1 shade lighter |
Over the next couple of weeks, I washed the Karen Millen shirt another 3 times, so that is 4 times in total and yes, true to the statement on the packet, the shirt is now looking three shades whiter than it was originally. Where before, I would have been embarrassed to wear the greying shirt, now it looks bright and white and I'd be happy to wear it to work!
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| After 3 washes - approaching white! |
I still don't think I'd describe the shirt as "like new" butnow I think that's more to do with creases than colour!
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| After 5 washes - nearly as white as the door! |
Challenge One...Complete.
