leather dye from a rucksack has been dissolved by sweat into a cotton shirt, short of collecting sweat at an athletics event, any suggestions what might be a solvent/stain remover? Web pages on restoring leather talk of "lacquer thinners" whatever that is. Stain devils don't seem to do one.
leather dye on clothing
Aug 19, 2006
7 Replies
It's unlikely to be the lacquer, which shouldn't be water soluble. Tannins are often used to colour leather so a recipe for removing tea/ coffee stains should work. Nice range of cotton shirts in ASDA....
Caustic soda for no more than 5 minutes..if that doesn't fix it, new shirt..because any more than that will rot the cotton too. DAMHIKT.
I think you mean washing soda. The chemical destruction with caustic is measured in femtoseconds not five minute intervals. Some more on femtoseconds here:
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Or Borax, which is milder still. Ecover do a "laundry bleach" powder, available in supermarkets. How it would affect the original colour if not white I don't know.
So the sweat has loosened the dye and its now on the shirt? Doesn't that indicate that the dye is water soluable?
Do you want to clean the shirt or restore the leather?
Most fabric dyes are water soluble, but they become water fast on cotton
Following up to The Medway Handyman
washing doesn't remove it
clean the shirt
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