planet goth... haunted house

the kitchen

why do black clothes fade?

Why is it that your favourite black clothes never stay properly black? That fade to grey seems to occur no matter how carefully you look after your clothes because the dye used to colour them is often unstable and gradually decomposes.

You’ll find that over time, some clothes fade or change colour more quickly than others. It all depends on the type of dye used to colour them. Ordinary dyes such as natural dyes just stick to the molecules that make up the material and so don’t last as long. But the newest class of dye, ‘reactive’ dyes such as azo dyes, become part of the molecules that make up the material and therefore are remarkably colour fast.

Certain factors such as bleach, which can sometimes be found in washing powder, sunlight, artificial light, or even atmospheric gases all speed up the rate your clothes fade. Unfortunately this fading is permanent and the only way you will get your clothes looking blacker than black again is to re-dye them.

clothing tips for goths:

How to prevent black (and coloured) garments fading.

1. Follow the washing instructions on the label.

2. Wash similar colours together with cold water on a short cycle, or handwash in cold water.

3. Use a washing powder or liquid that is specially designed for colours.

4. Clean all pieces of a matching outfit at the same time, otherwise some might fade more quickly than others.

5. If you followed the above instructions and still found loads of colour was coming out of an item of clothing when you washed them, get them cleaned at the dry cleaners.

6. Avoid spraying your clothes with perfume or hairspray.

7. Store your clothes away from natural and artificial light – eg in a wardrobe and not on the floor!

maggots

Using maggots and leeches during surgery sounds like some Elizabethan nightmare, but it appears these wrigglies have a part to play in modern medicine!

What do maggots do – other than eventually turn into flies? They eat flesh.

The larvae of the Greenbottle fly (Phaenicia sericata) love to feast on the flesh of the decaying and the dead. This makes them great little surgeons. When placed onto a wound they just munch away on the rotten flesh and leave the healthy stuff behind.

lovely lovely leeches

Lovely lovely leeches. They suck blood, and they’re VERY effective. While they suck, their saliva slobbers into the wound, and it contains an anaesthetic to numb the pain their jaws cause. It also contains histamine, which causes the blood vessels to dilate, and an anti-coagulant, which prevents the blood clotting. This is the perfect cocktail for maximising the amount of blood that can be extracted from the wound. Medics consider such treatment ideal for stop veins surrounding wounds becoming clogged up. So bring on the leeches!

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