Clothes tend to naturally yellow over time. Since most big brand laundry detergents are fighting to provide you with the "brightest and whitest" clothes, they've had to devise ways to counteract this natural occurrence. What's their solution? Optical brighteners.
These optical brighteners are designed to trick your eyes into thinking that your clothes are less yellow than they actually are. This happens because they are actually dyes in most commercial laundry detergents that alter the way clothes reflect light.
If you remember your science lessons, light is made up of a color spectrum. The optical brighteners absorb the ultraviolet light and give off light in the blue region of the light spectrum. The blue light negates the yellow tinge to the clothing and tricks your eye into thinking that the fabric looks whiter. It also makes the clothes look brighter because it gives off more visible light.
In the “old days” people used to use “bluing” (a blue dye) for the same effect. The blue color somewhat canceled out the yellow tinge and made the clothes appear white.
Optical brighteners may be known by other names such as brightening agents, fluorescent bleaches, optical whiteners, fluorescent brighteners, or fluorescent whiteners. Regardless of what they are called, they are made up of different chemical compounds.
Laundry detergents do not list what chemicals they use and in fact, may not include the fact that they use optical brighteners on their ingredient list at all.
1. They’re designed to bind to the clothing and remain. If you were able to rinse them off, they wouldn’t be doing their job. Because they remain on your clothing and sheets, they come into regular contact with your skin. This is not healthy for your skin and can cause rashes, irritations, and sensitivities compared to the safety of a natural laundry soap.
2. They are not readily biodegradable. Therefore they can be harmful to fish and other animals and plants.
3. They can also cause your clothes to feel stiff unless fluffed in the dryer or washed with a fabric softener. Laundry washed without optical brighteners will feel much softer even if line dried.
4. Long term effects are still not known. Since they can cause issues in people with skin irritation and sensitivities, it should still be avoided.
Another interesting fact is that if you wash clothes with detergents using optical brighteners, you can put them under a black light and they will actually glow. For this reason, we’ve been told that military personnel are not supposed to wash their uniforms with any detergents using optical brighteners because it makes their uniforms highly visible with night vision goggles.
Detergents that use optical brighteners make the fabric stiffer, can be irritating to your skin, are bad for the environment, and do not even make your clothes any cleaner. Your eyes may think your clothes are cleaner, but it’s just an optical illusion.
Instead of chemical-laden detergents with optical brighteners, Goat Milk Stuff makes a goat milk laundry soap that is a healthier and safer way to clean your clothes. The laundry soap makes your clothes look and feel clean without relying on optical illusions.
For more information, please visit Ogilvy.
The Goat Milk Stuff Laundry Soap is available in 3 sizes so you can find the best amount to suit your needs. We offer it in a Trial Size, a Standard Size and a Refill Size. If you've never used a natural laundry soap in powder form before, we recommend starting with the Trial Size.
The Trial Size and Standard Size make wonderful gift options. The Refill Size is the perfect size if you love our Laundry Soap and want to stock up at the best possible price.
We also make a Goat Milk Laundry Stain Stick. This powerful little stick lifts stubborn stains from tomato sauce to grass stains. In fact, we haven't found a stain the Stain Stick doesn't work on yet!
Optical brighteners, optical brightening agents (OBAs), fluorescent brightening agents (FBAs), or fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs), are chemical compounds that absorb light in the ultraviolet and violet region (usually 340-370 nm) of the electromagnetic spectrum, and re-emit light in the blue region (typically 420-470 nm) through the phenomenon of fluorescence. These additives are often used to enhance the appearance of color of fabric and paper, causing a "whitening" effect; they make intrinsically yellow/orange materials look less so, by compensating the deficit in blue and purple light reflected by the material, with the blue and purple optical emission of the fluorophore.[1]
The most common classes of compounds with this property are the stilbenes, e.g., 4,4′-diamino-2,2′-stilbenedisulfonic acid. Older, non-commercial fluorescent compounds include umbelliferone, which absorbs in the UV portion of the spectrum and re-emit it in the blue portion of the visible spectrum. A white surface treated with an optical brightener can emit more visible light than that which shines on it, making it appear brighter. The blue light emitted by the brightener compensates for the diminishing blue of the treated material and changes the hue away from yellow or brown and toward white.[2]
Approximately 400 brightener types are listed in the international Colour Index database,[4] but fewer than 90 are produced commercially, and only a handful are commercially important. The Colour Index Generic Names and Constitution Numbers can be assigned to a specific substance. However, some are duplicated, since manufacturers apply for the index number when they produce it. The global OBA production for paper, textiles, and detergents is dominated by just a few di- and tetra-sulfonated triazole-stilbenes and a di-sulfonated stilbene-biphenyl derivatives. The stilbene derivatives are subject to fading upon prolonged exposure to UV, due to the formation of optically inactive cis-stilbenes. They are also degraded by oxygen in air, like most dye colorants. All brighteners have extended conjugation and/or aromaticity, allowing for electron movement. Some non-stilbene brighteners are used in more permanent applications such as whitening synthetic fiber.
Brighteners can be "boosted" by the addition of certain polyols, such as high molecular weight polyethylene glycol or polyvinyl alcohol. These additives increase the visible blue light emissions significantly. Brighteners can also be "quenched". Excess brightener will often cause a greening effect as emissions start to show above the blue region in the visible spectrum.
Brighteners are commonly added to laundry detergents to make the clothes appear cleaner. Normally cleaned laundry appears yellowish, which consumers do not like.[2] Optical brighteners have replaced bluing which was formerly used to produce the same effect.
Brighteners are used in many papers, especially high brightness papers, resulting in their strongly fluorescent appearance under UV illumination. Paper brightness is typically measured at 457 nm, well within the fluorescent activity range of brighteners.[5] Paper used for banknotes does not contain optical brighteners, so a common method for detecting counterfeit notes is to check for fluorescence.
Optical brighteners have also found use in cosmetics. One application is to formulas for washing and conditioning grey or blonde hair, where the brightener can not only increase the luminance and sparkle of the hair, but can also correct dull, yellowish discoloration without darkening the hair. Some advanced face and eye powders contain optical brightener microspheres that brighten shadowed or dark areas of the skin, such as "tired eyes".
End uses of optical brighteners include:
From around to , chemical brighteners were used by many Chinese farmers to enhance the appearance of their white mushrooms. This illegal use was mostly eliminated by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture.[6]