Bleeding

Bleeding happens when dye molecules that never fully bonded to the fiber wash out into the water or transfer onto whatever fabric is touching the garment, most often with deep, saturated colors like true red, black, and navy. It's most pronounced with dyes that weren't fully rinsed or set during finishing — some budget direct dyes and hand-applied reactive dyes are the usual culprits. A few free washes typically clear most of the excess color.

Garment-dyed and overdyed pieces carry more loose dye than fabric that went through a mill's complete wash-and-fix cycle before cutting, so a small-batch overdyed hoodie will bleed harder in its first two or three washes than a piece-dyed retail tee. We tell every customer picking up a fresh batch of garment-dyed maroon hoodies to wash them alone the first time — skip that, and a white undershirt tossed in the same load comes out pink.

Pros put a cold-wash, wash-separately instruction on the hang tag for any dark or hand-dyed run, and test-wash a sample garment alongside a plain white cloth before shipping a full order to a buyer who'll be sensitive to it, like a hotel or restaurant uniform program.

Hearing the word bleeding makes a shirt sound defective. Some dye loss in the first few washes is normal even on well-made goods; the real red flag is a shirt still bleeding noticeably after four or five washes, which points to poor dye fixation rather than a bad batch of fabric.