A guest hands in a new red linen shirt with a lunch stain, twenty minutes before the tender leaves. You have handled hundreds of shirts. You wash it with a white napkin that was in the same basket. The shirt is fine. The napkin is now pink, and the napkin is part of a set of twelve. This is what fabric failure looks like in practice — it is rarely the expensive garment that is destroyed.
Colour-fastness: test before you trust
Colour-fastness is a dye system resistance to water, rubbing, light, perspiration and cleaning agents. New, deep-dyed, hand-dyed, indigo and bright-red items are the highest risk.
The wet-crock test (60 seconds):
- Choose an inside seam allowance or hem — never a visible face.
- Dampen a white cotton swab with the exact solution you intend to use (detergent at working dilution, or the spotting agent).
- Press for 10-15 seconds, do not rub.
- Inspect the swab under good light. Any colour on the swab = not fast.
- Repeat on every colour of a multi-coloured or printed garment.
If it is not fast: wash alone, cold, short cycle, fastest safe extraction, dry immediately. Never leave it wet in a heap.
The failure modes
| Failure | Cause | Prevention |
|---|---|---|
| Dye migration / bleeding | Loose dye released into the wash liquor or transferred while wet | Test first; wash alone; cold water; never let dyed items sit wet |
| Shrinkage (relaxation) | Tension applied at manufacture released by water | Cool wash, low or no tumble heat, reshape damp |
| Shrinkage (consolidation/felting) | Wool scales interlock under heat + moisture + agitation | Cool water, no agitation, no tumble drying — felting is irreversible |
| Pilling | Short fibres migrate to the surface and ball up; held on by strong synthetic fibres | Wash inside out, low agitation, mesh bag, de-pill with a fabric comb or stone |
| Crocking | Dry rubbing transfers dye (classic on indigo denim) | Warn the guest; separate from pale upholstery and white linen |
Felting explained
Wool fibres carry overlapping cuticle scales. Heat, water and mechanical action ratchet those scales together permanently. There is no reversing it — a felted cashmere jumper is a felted cashmere jumper for the rest of its life. This is the single most common irrecoverable laundry accident on a yacht.
Onboard Notes
- Colour-catcher sheets are a safety net, not a strategy. They do not save a fine white shirt from a bleeding red one.
- Anything new, anything red, anything indigo, anything hand-dyed at a market: assume it is not fast until you have tested it.
- Sort by colour, fibre, soil level and construction — four axes, not one.
- Watermaker/RO water is soft; that helps rinse dye out cleanly, but it also means detergent goes further and residues rinse slower if you overdose.
- If you see bleeding mid-cycle, stop, rinse cold repeatedly, and keep the item wet until you have removed the loose dye. Drying sets transferred dye.