Make Your Own Bleach Spray Shirt In Just 10 Minutes!
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Have you seen people wearing those fun bleached t-shirts? They are super simple to make; you can make them in under 10 minutes and all you need is a shirt, bleach, water, a spray bottle, and a stencil!
Find a stencil, or make one with a Cricut or Silhouette machine and stencil vinyl.
To protect the back of the shirt from bleach, slide a piece of cardboard inside the shirt. Make sure the cardboard is big enough to protect the entire shirt from any bleach overspray!
If you found a pre-made stencil, lightly spray the back of it with spray adhesive, place it on your shirt, and firmly press down all the edges. If you made your own stencil, make sure you cut it out of adhesive vinyl so that it will stick to your shirt. You can use transfer paper to transfer the vinyl to your shirt.
Place the stencil on your shirt and firmly press down all the edges. Then gently peel up the transfer paper, making sure the stencil stays attached to your shirt.
Pour about a quarter cup of pure bleach into a spray bottle. You don’t need to dilute the bleach for this project.
Spray a very light coat of bleach onto your shirt all around the stencil using a very fine mist setting on the nozzle; one or two trigger pulls will do it. Immediately blot the whole area with a paper towel.
Wait three minutes while the bleach does its work. Don't get impatient and spray again; bleach can take a while to fully remove all of the color from the fabric. And don't worry if you start to see weird colors like green, orange, or purple at the beginning; just wait the full three minutes.
If the shirt is still not light enough after the full three minutes, spray it again with a very light misting of bleach, immediately blot it up with a paper towel, and wait another three minutes.
Gently peel the stencil away, and you’re done! Hang the shirt and let it dry.
If you see fine dusty powder on the shirt after it air dries
If you see a fine dusty powder on your shirt after it has air-dried, that is just crystallized bleach. Just toss the shirt in the dryer for half an hour and let it tumble around to knock the powder loose. DO NOT GET IT WET or you will re-activate the bleach and ruin your design.
Laundering your bleach spray shirt
Once your shirt air dries, if you don't see any crystallized bleach powder on your shirt, rinse the entire shirt in cold water. Then hang it to air dry again.
Once the shirt has air-dried again, wash it by itself like normal in your washing machine, and dry it like normal. This will ensure there's no remaining bleach left to leach out into your other clothes.
After the first initial rinse and first full wash and dry by itself, your new bleached shirt can be laundered like normal. The bleach won't affect the other clothes in the load of laundry, so wash and dry it however you normally would based on the material it's made of.
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