I can put unstained whites in the wash and they will come out with "mystery stains". I think there is some kind of product that "catches" stray colors floating around in the wash water. Does anyone know what I mean?

On edit: my husband does the laundry, so I never know what to expect. I really hate it when I get black clothing back with fuzz all over it.

Sometimes I wonder!

You know that, right?

...don't actually ruin clothes until we're certain that merely looking inept and helpless isn't going to work?

winning!

I've given up buying white clothing.

But darker clothing isn't much better. If I get green shirts, for example, I attract even darker stains.

Black clothing ends up attracting whatever residual chlorine bleach might have been floating around in the washer from doing a load of whites. Although, that was with my former washing machine. Now I have a High Efficiency washer/dryer and don't seem to be having the same bleach spots on dark clothing issues.

I do the laundry here, and so have nobody else to blame. Not even the Laundry Elves, who refuse to come do the laundry for me when I'm not looking.

Bastards.

I think it's hard water, and if you use bleach the chemical reaction between the two cause whites to dull or gray out. I found this out because my tub would not come clean and I saw on Pinterest that this was the reason. The solution was to use a paste of baking soda and 3% hydrogen peroxide on it, let it sit for a few hours or over night and then scrub. It worked, my tub is like new now and I never use bleach on it anymore.

It works for white clothes too. Just pour a cup of hydrogen peroxide in the water or bleach dispenser instead of bleach. You can also try Dawn Dish detergent and baking soda for whitening.

There are a couple brands AAfresh and Tide. It's basically a large alkaseltzer tablet and does make a difference.

Real solution is to give up on whites.