Why do garments look darkish when immersed in water?

A: The color of an object is set by the spectral composition of the sunshine mirrored by it. When a floor is dry, the mirrored mild rays comparable to the color of the floor are superposed with subtle white mild arising out of random scattering ensuing from the roughness and irregularities of the floor. In garments, this superposition tends to fade the relected color.

If garments are immersed in water, all of the kinks and interspaces are full of water. This minimises scattering on the floor. So the mirrored mild comes out unsuppressed with the essential hue of the fabric. Therefore it seems to be darker than when dry.

The impact is conspicuous on cotton garments because the fibres are loosely full of a number of microscopic air areas. This will increase the floor space and consequently the scattering of sunshine. Therefore cotton garments look mild when dry and darkish when moist. The impact is just not a lot in artificial and silk garments as their surfaces are smoother and little or no water is absorbed by them.

G. Meena Raajeshwari, Coimbatore, and G. Sivaramakrishna, Tadepalligudem.