Why is bleach sufficient to ruin a good sweater, but powerless to get ink out of an undershirt?

Bleach should get ink out of an undershirt. What kind of ink are you talking about? Bleach is what use to scare the ink. Is it some kind of mutant, alien ink? What are you up against, @Nullo? You’re scaring me!

I have barred the gates, but can not hold them for long. I can not get out. They have taken the Bridge and the Second Hall. Mr. Clean and the Tide Bottle Fairy and Dryer Sheets fell there. The pool is up to the wall at the Westgate. The Watcher in the water took the good bleach. I can not get out. The end comes. Clicks, clicking in the deep. They are coming.
:D

It’s gel ink, if that makes a difference. Long ago, I washed a gel-inked pen along with one of my famous total-liquidation loads, and got ink all over everything, including the dryer. Everything’s been re-washed many times since, but alas, to no avail.
Though this might actually be the first time that that shirt is getting the bleach. We shall see.

@LOL. You might need to make sure that the washer is totally free of ink first. It may just be re-staining things. Have you tried to hand wash the shirt in a solution of detergent and bleach without putting it in the washer? If that works, good. Then you need to make sure that there is no ink lingering in the washer. Ink bad. Washer good. It wants to be a force for good, not a force for evil. Your washer doesn’t want to be a party to this. Help it be a good.

Bleach may NOT get ink out, actually. Ink is dissolved by a different type of solvent. Try something acetone based… like a cheap hairspray, or fingernail polish remover. I’m not sure about the gel stuff…..hmmm. But once you wash it and put it in the dryer, there is little hope because that sets the stain.

The yellow under the armpits… that’s a different story. That’s usually deodorant residue and body oil etc. Some people use vinegar but I think lemon juice might work better. Another product I found really helpful was giving hubby’s shirt a presoak in something called NappySan. It’s like Oxywash.

Once you run the clothing through the dryer, it sets the stain and is next to impossible to get out. Hairspray or rubbing alcohol get a lot of ink-based stains out. As for underarm stains, a product like oxyclean generally gets those out.

Most pieces of clothing should hold up for 50 washes. Then it’s time to replace.

I would try rubbing or denatured alcohol (even vodka might work if you don’t have the other kinds)
if that doesn’t work after you have completely rinsed out the alcohol try ammonia. If that doesn’t work rinse completely and try dry-cleaning solvent.
If any of these work at all stick with them and soak overnight.

Jesus, you guys are serious stain fighters. It’s an undershirt, don’t sweat it. (My coffee hasn’t kicked in yet)

Well, some people really love their undershirts… LOL….. I’m giving general advice for anyone who has gotten ink on anything… I have managed to get ink out of a shirt by treating it right away with hairspray and kept ‘favourite’ shirts going well past their ‘best before’ dates.

I know this is general and I’m risking the mod police, but how did you get ink on an undershirt, Nullo?

As for the yellowing underarms, I like to use Fells-Naptha bar soap. Rub it into the fabric, use some muscle, laundry is not for wimps.
Or soak in an enzyme pretreatment product if you are a wimp. ; ) jk

Bleach is effective on dyes (as used to color fabrics), but not pigments. Some inks are dye-based, but not gel inks.

Also, many pen manufacturers are also now using inks that are particularly hard to remove from cellulose (both paper and your T-shirts are cellulose) to make it harder to falsify checks.

Update: bleach has not solved the problem. I suspect that the articles in question have been washed and dried too many times.

@Adirondackwannabe I will, on occasion, throw a bunch of random clothes into the wash. Some months back, the load included both the undershirt and my work pants. I had left a pen in the pocket of the pants.

It’s not really that big of a deal – it’s an undershirt, which means that it goes under a regular shirt, and no-one’s the wiser. But I am a bit vexed that bleach isn’t working as advertised.

Ink is removed with hairspray.

Because life’s not fair. Have you tried saturating the stain with hairspray? I have found that if I do this and let it soak for at least 10 minutes (preferably longer), the stain loosens up considerably and will come out in the wash. Make sure not to wash the garment in hot water or dry it in the dryer; heat sets a stain.