By: J Rowe,
Salt Lake
I learned this from my brother. A former tow truck driver and current oversize trucker. Nothing looks wore out or greasy if its black.
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Response from Vicki:
Thank you for your tip. For the most part, we have found this to be true, but we thought the color black was to “cover up the dirt” (road dirt, that is). 🙂
I will take one exception to the black rule, though, and that is black leather belts. With enough wear, the black does tend to wear off. I suppose this is possible with anything that has a covering or iron-on type transfer.
One thing to be careful of when washing anything black like bed sheets — although I don’t think I’ve ever seen black bed sheets — is that you want to be careful when doing your laundry. Make sure that you don’t get bleach anywhere near them or you will have spots. If you wash your bedding in a commercial laundromat, be even more careful about what your dark colored items touch (since other users may not have been careful with handling their cleaning products).
We describe what happened when I accidentally got grease from the underside of a trailer on my winter jacket on our hand cleaner page. Yep, the folks at our truck driver training school used Goop to clean the grease off.
I wonder about wearing a black hat, especially in the summer. Since the color black absorbs heat, wouldn’t wearing a black hat tend to make one feel hotter?
Years ago, I bought a Dickies cap for myself at an outlet store.
It was like the one shown here from Amazon.com, with which we have an affiliate relationship, but it was off-white with burgundy colored stitching.
Over time while wearing it, it would develop a “sweat” stain. (As a bit of background, I had once ruined a brimmed cap by running it through the washing machine, so I’d taken to trying to wash hats by hand with shampoo. I had only limited success using this cleaning method.) So, while I was reluctant to machine wash this one, I did so anyway.
The cap came out pretty clean but the cloth started to separate at the intersection of the forehead and brim.
It’s still quite wearable today, even though it looks like it has seen some action.
Of course, having all (or nearly all) black things in one’s truck does not give one license not to clean occasionally. Neat and clean should go together. So, it is a good idea to have a vacuum cleaner and whisk broom in one’s truck.
Thanks again for your tip. We wish you safe travels and lots of money saving opportunities on the road.
Best regards,
Vicki Simons
