When I was young I grew up with people who knew how to do things in the house keeping laundry arena. I don’t follow Martha Stewart or Mrs Hinge, I don’t even know who the latter is I only know people call me by that name.

I guess I am from a different generation. People don’t wash and iron these days, they discard, dump and replace.

That’s not my style I invest and then look after so when a washing tragedy occurs on something you love, you need to know how to fix it.

What to do when something black and white or navy and white is washed too hot and the dark colour runs into the light colour making it grey.

This has happened to me a few times with swimwear, I like a contrasting trim on a bikini, black and white or navy and white/cream but have ruined a few in the washing machine. Now I usually hand wash bikinis if they have two contrasting fabrics, plain swimwear I wash on cool in the machine, synthetic fabric is very difficult to whiten anything that has gone grey.

Cotton is a different story and this you can usually recover.

I washed a favourite beach sarong, black with white edging I love and paid a lot for too hot and when it came out of the machine the crisp white edge was a dull dingy grey.

Gutted is not the word. I made the mistake of not acting immediately and allowing it to dry which does make it harder to reverse. Fortunately I didn’t put it in a tumble dryer as this will set in the dye and make it virtually impossible to rectify.

Here’s my laundry hack which did work on 100% cotton.

I soaked the garment in a solution of white vinegar, mildly acid and bicarbonate of soda for about 8 hours.

In a normal sized washing up bowl I put about a cup of white vinegar and a heaped dessert spoon of bicarbonate of soda in temperate water. Not hot not freezing.

After I soaked the garment I then ran through a cold wash cycle with a Dr. Beckmann colour catching sheet.

These are pretty expensive £5.50 but they work. I have been pretty impressived with the Dr. Beckmann range. I have found it to be better than other alternatives like Colour Catcher or Dylon.

My results weren’t completely perfect, probably because I let the garment dry before treating it, the faster you act the better.

But it is much more wearable than it was, only I would probably notice the slight grey tinge.

Would the colour catcher sheets work without the white vinegar, not to be confused with wine or cider vinegar, stage. I don’t know but a long soak before watching anything was the go to solution for both my Mum and my Grandma who kept whites really white long before Vanish and Dr.Beckmann were even a thing.

FYI before you just throw the fated item back in the wash with a spoonful of your favourite whitener brightened, make sure it’s colour safe, a lot aren’t and you could end up making matters worse if you don’t check first.

Why Bicarbonate of Soda is the safer alternative, household bleaching agent and at 49p from Aldi a whole lot cheaper too.

I’ve added the link for the Dr. Beckmann sheets from Waitrose where I bought mine from. Of course they happen to be on sale now for £3.66 for 50 sheets.