November 28, 2011

Mommy Mondays: Treating Stains

I don't lead a glamorous life, as you will see in this post.  I live a happy, practical one, constantly searching for remedies for little domestic conundrums. As a mother and a vintage seller, I wash and treat a variety of stains on a variety of different fabrics.  Here are some household products/appliances that I have found that rescue me from those tough stains.

This is my, and many other vintage sellers as well as mothers, go-to item for getting rid of tough stains.  It works on materials made of natural fibers, such as cotton and rayon.  They also have an oxiclean made for treating baby clothes! I always soak my clothing that needs some stain removal in this.  Beware of clothes that bleed though.  However, if you run into the problem of one color of clothing bleeding on another, I just found a solution for that!

I thought I ruined a perfectly beautiful 1950s prom dress, but researched online and found about this magical little substance called Carbona Color Run Remover.  This little box comes in individual packets and are hard to find.  They are not usually sold in your local grocery store and the most accessible way to buy it is on Amazon.  However, I was desperate the other night and found a walmart that carried them and it was the ONLY walmart that carried them within 50 miles of me.  It turned my yellow dress that had turned green, back to yellow! I was ever pleased.  One box costs a little over $2 and I just bought a bunch.

Here is my last little solution for some tricky stains.  Since oxiclean can't work on materials such as silk, I found out that glycerin, i.e. soap, works well and I've used Palmolive on my silk and I'm satisfied.  There are some stains that the dry cleaners can't even get rid of, or they use too harsh of chemicals, which could hurt your delicate vintage clothes.  But, soaking your special dress or accessory in this for a couple of hours can really do the trick.

These are some of my remedies and I am not claiming that these will fix all the problems, so don't send me any hate mail if you try something and you ruin your dress.  That's not my problem. Don't soak items that shouldn't be soaked, like crepe, or anything else that shouldn't touch water.   But, they seem to work most of the time!  Please share any little laundry secrets by posting comments below!

1 comment:

  1. I love wearing white but hate getting the stains out. Never used dish soap before. Maybe I should give it a try.

    http://www.thegirlieblog.com

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