I figured out a trick recently. I have this one hand towel that, no matter how many times I washed it, it had a "wet dog" smell (like towels sometimes get if you don't wash them frequently enough.) It could be fresh from the laundry, and would still smell like that. I didn't want to just toss it, because it was one I had knit myself. I decided to try soaking it in diluted vinegar before washing it. That did the trick. Yay! :)
Now I have another problem I'm trying to solve, and thought I'd ask you if you know any good tricks. The problem is sweat stains. My regular detergent (Tide / PC knockoff) isn't working. I tried Sunlight Deep Clean (too scented!, plus didn't work). I tried soaking in diluted hydrogen peroxide (something I saw on the web). I tried a stain remover with "oxy" in the name. (Realizing afterwards that it's probably just hydrogen peroxide with dye added.) Does anyone have a trick they use? Thanks!
PS: I got my dishes washed yesterday! My kitchen is so much nicer now! Now if only I could get the table cleaned off...
4 comments:
are they the hard crusted on sweat stains or just yellowed (on whiteish fabric) stains? I have used the h2o2 trick with limited success on both as well as oxiclean soaking (The active ingredient in OxiClean is sodium percarbonate (Na2CO3•H2O2), an adduct of sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)). I've also used vinegar (limited success) and I've used baking soda / cream of tartar / aspirin powder paste (limited success). Hope you find something that works!
They're yellowed stains. Perhaps I didn't let the solutions soak long enough... I'll try overnight next weekend.
Oxyclean at a hole in a cotton shirt of mine, so I don't use it.
BORAX-it's cheap, doesn't hurt the environment, Make a paste and try that. You can add it to your laundry every time you wash a load also. I have a front loader washer, so I have to dilute the borax, but it works great. We have well water and all whites get dingy here and yes, sweat stains (back of neck) show. I tried the paste and it worked.
Thanks! I was using borax with regular laundry for a bit, but found it wasn't fully dissolving, and left residue behind. I'll try a paste on some of the stains, vinegar on others, and the "oxy" spray on others... we'll see which works. (I'll have to label which is which!)
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