The effects of some ingredients in the structure of household laundry detergents over the whiteness of textile materials

Textile products are subjected to various maintenance procedures such as washing, dry cleaning, ironing etc. throughout lifetime. The most common maintenance procedure for textile materials is washing. When white fabrics are subjected to repeated washing process, whiteness is decreased and yellowing or graying becomes evident. Post-wash protection of fabric whiteness is provided with various additives in detergent contents. To achieve whitening/brightening effect of fabrics, generally some procedures such as using bleaching system, increasing the emission of light from the surface (brightening), and altering the hue of the surface are used. This paper is a review which the effects over fabric whiteness of some ingredients such as fluorescent whitening agents and shading dyes that are used in home type detergents is investigated.