Saturday, April 26, 2014
LED Lights Are Ruining Laundry Detergent's White-Brightening Trick
gizmodo.com: LED lighting is great. The right bulb gives the same warm incandescent glow you love from a fraction of the energy. But there's a downside: while LEDs make cities look awesome, the most common type of LED lighting dims the ultraviolet trick laundry detergents use to make white clothes look whiter. The future is bright, but it's also kind of dingy.
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I feel lied to! But actually, this could be a big problem for theatre. If a long running show (it probably wouldn't even have to be that long running) had a custom made white shirt, or one that they couldn't easily replace, this could pose a serious problem. LEDs are becoming more popular in the lighting world, and since our LEDs are also tuned to give out solely visible-spectrum colors, that bright white tailcoat may not look very white any more! I would also imagine that dye manufacturers or fabric manufacturer will be spurred on to create clothing that stays white better and for longer.
This is a really interesting issue. I never knew that detergents use this trick to make clothes seem whiter. Silly me thinking that detergent actually just cleaned. I also never thought about how using LED lighting fixtures could create problems not only with cleaning costumes but potentially with dying them as well. With the rise of LEDs, have dye manufacturers had to change their products to still have the same effect? I would be interested in learning about how the rise of LED technology has created problems not only for detergent companies but also clothing companies in general.
I never knew that detergents did more then keep your clothes clean. LED lights are becoming more and more popular and used by many people. This could add concern for maintenance of a show keeping the clothes looking good so that the lights do not negatively affect them. I am not knowledgeable in the world of LEDs but I wonder if there is a way to make the LEDs react against the clothes in a different, whether it be at the lighting end of the spectrum or the detergent end of the spectrum.
I find it really interesting that the "super vibrant whites" of our laundry detergent is actually just light playing tricks on our eyes. I'm curious to see whether or not companies that produce lightbulbs will go through with the violet trick just to help out laundry companies. It seems a little far fetched and I'm afraid companies might just have to looking for ways to actually make clothing white.
This is really interesting because my arcade group is actually trying to use laundry detergent to achieve a very similar effect. Even though this seems like it may be a huge downfall for the detergent industry, it certainly opens a door to effects that could be achieved. I wonder if you could achieve different effects based on LED/ fixture type. I would be curios to see the effects of a source four LED compared to say a VLX. Who knew that something as simple as laundry detergent could actually effect the physics of light.
Well, this might be motivation for detergent companies to make detergent that cleans really well, instead of just making the clothes look like they're clean under light. I doubt the LED companies care at all about how they're affecting the relative whiteness of our clothes, and I don't think many people are going to change their buying habits because they make their clothes look a little better. I know LED's are getting more commonly used by companies and other general lighting for public areas, so this might be something that's just unavoidable.
This is actually really interesting, and it makes me worry about more than just my white shirts. When you bleach your hair bright white, like I do, you actually go through a process similar to what the detergent does. They bleach it, then add cool, bluish toned hair die over top to mask the yellowy color that naturally arises. The laundry detergent does the same things to our clothes to create the illusion of ultra-white laundry! SO should I be worried about my hair die too? It certainly seems like the lights would effect my hair the same way! But hey, I could live with blue hair.
This is actually really interesting, and it makes me worry about more than just my white shirts. When you bleach your hair bright white, like I do, you actually go through a process similar to what the detergent does. They bleach it, then add cool, bluish toned hair die over top to mask the yellowy color that naturally arises. The laundry detergent does the same things to our clothes to create the illusion of ultra-white laundry! SO should I be worried about my hair die too? It certainly seems like the lights would effect my hair the same way! But hey, I could live with blue hair.
Haha! This made me laugh! I never really bleach my clothes, it's too risky and I don't know... never felt like it. But I find it pretty interesting that this laundry detergent doesn't make things white like we think they do. I think it's funny but it makes sense that the type of light really effects the whiteness of your shirt. It's something people don't really think about because to us white is white is white! LED lights are becoming a lot more popular and so I wonder what else is going to have to change due to that?
It seems to me that FWAs have been tricking us in to thinking that things are brighter than they actually are. Now that LEDs don't allow that kind of trick we will have to come up with a new trick that works differently or we will have to live with less white fabric. Perhaps making different types of LEDs is the solutions, but I think we may also want to look in to the possibility of a different chemical that can do something similar to FWAs. I suspect that the large budgets behind the fabric cleaning industry will have a solution for us very soon.
This is really cool I can't say I have ever wondered how laundry detergents work, I have always taken them for granted. But Ruben brings up an interesting point that if theaters use brightening detergents on their costumes and they switch to an LED rig their costumes may have an undesired glow. I wonder what other effects LED lighting will have as more and more people make the switch.
I'm actually devastated.. But not really, because I don't really wear white clothes. On the other hand, I do see the potential problems this could pose, especially in a theatre show, or any long running show that uses LED fixtures and white garments. Especially if the clothes cannot be easily replaced or remade, this could be a real problem because the continuity of the clothing piece would be lost. It would not be as white as it once was and that would definitely be noticed over time, perhaps not to the occasionally viewer, but anyone who were to see the show multiple times.
This is really cool. In Lighting Stagecraft, we discussed how LED lighting does not emit a spectrum of color as an incandescent would but rather distinct frequencies of light. Knowing this, it is easy to see why LED lights, even those that can mimic typical lighting on the surface, would not function in this manner. I wonder if information like this will influence high-scale restaurants and businesses to avoid LED lighting. I am curious if there are typical products used in scenery or costumes that lighting designers should be aware of if they choose LEDs that would behave differently due to the lack of incandescent fixtures.
This is really interesting. I never knew that detergent had FWA's in them and thats what makes your brights brighter! I don't know much about lights but i wonder if this will actually cause a change in the manufacturing of standard LED's. I feel like detergent is a much larger industry that LED lighting is right now. So i would think LED lighting companies would have to change their ways slightly to accommodate the bigger fish. Of course i dont know much about this sort of thing but it just seems like that is how it would have to be.
Who knew? Laundry detergent doesn't clean clothes, it dyes them too! It was soooo obvious, how'd I miss it? :P That being said this is really cool and a problem nobody would have ever considered. One thought that came to mind for me is what will happen to Laser Tag, that's usually done in blacklight. But it actually will affect everybody since that's apparently how white clothes actually look clean. My guess is after a while people will just get used to duller whites and deal with it.
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