Hi There! Just wanted you to know that I did a test run with the Dawn, (blue Dawn). I had some deep reds, dark browns and deep royal blue to wash (separately, of course). I used 2 tablespoons per full load of water, and nothing else. I expected it to "suds up" a lot more than it did, and it only required one rinse to get the soap off of the fabric. The fabrics came out looking great; nothing unusual about that. I used 2 Shout Color Catchers per load, and they uniformly came out highly saturated with dye. You could see dye in the water. I didn't find any fabrics where the color ran onto another fabric. I took the high risk fabrics -- like the deep red and some blues and a dark brown that really colored my Color Catchers --- and tested them for bleeding. There was no bleeding from the fabric. The fabric didn't appear to be in any way harmed by the experiment. Overall, it was a successful test, although I can't prove that the blue Dawn is responsible for setting the dyes. It certainly was cheap to use, instead of some gentle detergent (I usually use Ivory Laundry Soap). So those are the facts and you can make of it what you will. I'm going to keep using it.
By the way, I had a chemistry professor who also dyed fabric as a hobby so he knew about washing fabrics and dyes. He said he would never use Woolite on any fabric, and if I understood what was in it, I would never use it either. He generally used Dreft or Ivory Detergent. So I stopped with the Woolite. But that doesn't prove anything either.
Thanks for all your input!