Stain removal guide

Haha, J, I'll type it up for ya: Step 1: Soak shirt in a solution made from one gallon hot water (as hot as it will come out of the faucet) and one cup of vinegar. Let the shirt soak for 30 mins to 2 hours. Step 2: Rinse shirts, and squeeze out excess water. Empty bucket and rinse. In a cup, prepare a concentrated Oxy-Clean solution. Make sure to use the Oxy-Clean granules that come in the tub. Make the solution about 10 parts HOT water to one part O-C. Usually this amounts to two scoops of O-C (using the provided scoop) per 4-6 ounces of water. You want this to be very concentrated. Step 3: Apply the strong solution generously to the stained areas. Place the shirts in a bucket (so that the solution doesn't flow away, or dry) with the stained areas towards the bottom of the bucket so they stay nice and covered in the solution. Allow to soak overnight. It can also help to use an old toothbrush and scrub the stained areas every hour or so, if you've got the time. Step 4: In the morning, remove the shirts from bucket. Fill the bucket with a gallon of hot water, and two scoops of the Oxy-Clean (basically, follow the recipe on the package for a general cleaning solution) and mix well. Place the shirts in the bucket, and soak for 2-24 hours. This just helps to remove any trace of stain. You might want to stir the shirts around with your hands after you put them in the bucket with the weaker solution just to remove some of the stronger solution that is still on the shirts. Step 5: Remove, and wash/rinse in the regular cycle on your washing machine. Note: I find that this normally removes sweat/dirt stains from the armpit, neck, and cuff with ease. For really strong stains, you might have to repeat the process a few times. However, with this, I've been able to remove some major sweat stains that have been set into shirts for five years, at least.

No prob, happy to help. Let me know how it works. Also, please don't ban me if it doesn't work.

I have used this method over the past several weeks and it works great on dress shirts.

First, I used it on all of my white shirts, some of which had slight ring around the neck. After following all of the steps, they literally look new. They are now a pure white color, rather than the sort of dingy white that they had become over time.

Several days ago, I bought an old school Made in England Brooks Brothers Tux shirt at Goodwill to experiment on. It has a nasty case of ring around the neck. It is the kind of shirt that I would have ordinarly have passed on given the neck stains. However, after following VeraceMan's method, it came out looking like new.

Try these:

http://www.chemistry.co.nz/stain_frame.htm

http://www.srfabrics.com/care/stain.htm

Perry

There are also these:

• MSU Stain removal guide (PDF format)
  
• Mary Poppins stain removal guide
  
• Quick Stain Removal Guide (PDF format)
  

Probably repeats much of the same information but you never know...

This thread is old, but I can't resist to not giving my praise here. This method is amazing.

I have a couple of shirts that are so dirty (specially the collar rings) with permanent stains which went through many washing/ironing, that I don't want to wear anymore sit in the closet (I didn't throw them away since they were from mom). I tried above method on them, and I am telling you, my shirts now look amazingly new. I am going to wear them this weekend . I wish I took some before/after picture. But anyway, I am happy now.

Will this also work for t-shirts? I have some very old (vintage) white t-shirts that I love the fit of but that have some subtle staining (only visible in bright light) which I would love to get rid of. They are also more of an off-white now and I was hoping to find a method that would brighten at the same time.

I don't think cotton shirts should be soaked in hot water.

http://www.nakhleshirtmakers.com.au/...bric-care.html

My white Eton cotton shirt had some very tough stains on its french cuffs, even the dry cleaners couldn't remove it. (I later found out that shirt should not be dry cleaned, doh!).

I didn't want to throw away my $300 shirt so I went to the supermarket, bought some detergent (don't have the brand handy but its something similar to NapiSan, probably only available in Australia anyway, http://www.vanishstains.com.au/), soaked the damn shirt in a bucket of water for 3 days, and then handwashed it. The shirt came out white as snow!

I have used the above-posted method on all colors of cotton shirts with almost 100% effectiveness.

Oh, my God. I was extremely skeptical, and I cannot believe this works so well.

I think what the vinegar does is release old soap/detergent residue trapped in the fabric, which causes gray dinginess. Not a bad thing for all your washables, including colors. A vinegary soak is also good for your washing machine itself, for removing the buildup in there.

Does said method degrade the fabric? I'm looking forward to trying this as well ;-)

I have some stains on 100% wool trousers that the dry cleaner has failed to take out. Has anyone used this method for wool trousers? I assume you would have to have them pressed afterwards.