Just one sock of the pair is discolored? Maybe try washing the just the other sock with some poopy underwear to make it browner so the pair matches again.

Use warm water to wash your clothes? Don’t poop in your underpants?? Rinse the poop off before you put it in the machine???

poop knife vibe

Some kinds of black dyes are actually just really dark brown. When they start to fade they turn lighter which reveals the brown colour. There’s no way a poop stain transferred to your sock in the laundry. The enzymes in laundry detergent break that stuff down and keep it suspended in the water.

We’re gonna need a picture of the sock.

It really depends on what brand of sock and where you got it. The trick is to go there again and get another pair.

I believe you are talking about the yellow discoloration. That’s from leaving the clothes dirty for an extended amount of time and when you wash the detergent turns the stains yellow instead of removing them. You are letting your pile of clothes build up too long.

Dawg, it’s a sock. It’s not worth the time spent or the interest of a hundred people on Lemmy. Buy more. Value your time.

P 🅾️ 🅾️ p s 🅾️ c k.

Embrace the poop sock

Is this a serious question? How much poop was in the underwear? Anything looks brown because it’s covered in poop, then wash it again. In fact, wash the whole load again (without a load of poop).

If you’re serious, and one of your socks looks faded or bleached, but is clean, then you do have some options. This didn’t happen because there was a skidmark in your underwear, though. It’s most likely bleached, which can be caused by the sun, or some other chemicals on your sock (assuming you didn’t put bleach in with your dark clothes). It could also have been residual bleach from the last wash. You’ll want to figure out why it happened so it doesn’t happen again.

For a bleached sock, your best bet is probably re-dying the sock. Get some black dye (which is uaully a really dark blue or brown, actual black is tricky) that is specifically made for cotton/poly blend. Pure polyester needs special dye at high temps to take it in, so be prepared for mixed results.

Another option is to bleach the other sock to match. This is tricky, because it will be tough to match the lightness, and you risk ruining the socks since the bleach dissolves the fabric a little. And then your socks look poopy, as Jamie Tartt would say.

Option 3 is to just wear the socks. It sounds like you’re describing an athletic sock, and if you’re playing a sport in shorts, who cares if one sock looks weird? If you’re wearing long pants, people aren’t likely to see or care about your socks.

If it’s part of a uniform where it matters that you’re wearing black socks, go ahead and buy another pair. Keep the bleached one to polish your shoes, and then you’ll have three black socks in your laundry in case you lose one to the sock goblins that live in the dryer.

rit

I’m not sure how to get your sock back to black, but I would suggest this a perfect time for some experimentation. Test a combination of pooped/non-pooped underwear and socks under different situations. Grind in some of the poop. Leave some overnight before washing. Poop directly on the clothes and compare to pooping into the washer instead. Ask your family/friends if they have any spare poop they’d be willing to part with.

Try to minimize outside factors to your scientific testing, such as eating the same meals and/or corn content to keep your poop consistent.

Poly-cotton shouldn’t have reacted like that.

Poop, by itself, doesn’t do much of anything to black dyes. At most, you might run into a spot where it weakened the cotton fibers, but it should have done that only where the feces was in direct contact with the fabric. Poo can be acidic enough to weaken some natural fibers, I’ve just never seen it do so after being soaked and diluted by a significant amount of water.

So, I’d expect the undies to be discolored, not something washed with them.

The only reason it matters is that if the fabric of the sock is damaged, you’ll have issues getting any new dye to do much.

But that’s the answer, dye. You can try washing it again to see if the color change is from residual detergent (which isn’t usually going to only appear on one sock and not the things touching the sock as well), but once cotton loses pigment, you have to apply more to get it back.

Cheap option is a sharpie. The color won’t match exactly, but it’s cheap and fast Rit dye is the next option, but the black tends to be more of a dark gray on poly blends, in my experience. Heck, it’s barely black black on cotton. And it tends to wash out to a dark gray in a few washes even then. I’m not sure where you’d get the dyes that manufacturers use, I’ve never had call to try. But that’s the final option.

But, when you wash/rinse it to see if it’s residue or whatever, cold water isn’t special. Warm or hot water would dissolve the likely culprits better, but don’t use a detergent. The goal is to get out any residue, not add in more soap that could be what’s causing the color change to begin with.

I also noticed you said “abundant detergent”. Extra laundry soap isn’t beneficial. You don’t really get things cleaner after a normal amount for the size of the load, you just get soap left behind.

It might be an old sock. Either way…you need to chuck it in the bin and buy a new sock.