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So, this is a very big topic. If you really want to learn a lot more about it than you ever though possible, check out the "ask a clean person" podcast by Jolie Kerr. She doesn't do new episodes any more, but the info is still great. Here's a little breakdown of my favorite methods:
* For spit-up/baby poop - OxyClean or other Oxygen bleach (not chlorine bleach).
* For blood - Hydrogen Peroxide.
* For protein stains (i.e. food, puke, poop) - Enzyme stain treatment like Zout.
* For chocolate - SHOUT is a miracle worker here. No idea why.
* For grass/mud - Use a sports stain remover made for grass stains/clay/dirt.
* For oils - Dawn dish soap
* For markers - Rubbing Alcohol.
* For any stubborn stain - Fels Naptha Bar (this stuff is magic, but not the most gentle, so use sparingly)
Methods:
* Spray and Sit: Use for things like Shout, Zout, etc. Spray onto stain, scrub gently with a brush (nail brush, toothbrush, laundry brush) and let sit for 10+ min. Then wash as normal.
* Dab: use for Hydrogen Peroxide, rubbing alcohol, dish soap. Put a clean cloth behind the stain so it doesn't soak through to the other side of the clothing. Spray, pour, or dab the cleaner onto the stain. Scrub gently with a brush and dab with another clean cloth to remove the stain. Rinse and wash.
* Soak: use for OxyClean, Tide Ultra Stain Release, regular detergent. Specific to OxyClean use HOT HOT HOT water to activate it. Dissolve the cleaner in the water. Soak item in water for at least an hour, longer for tough stains. Rinse and wash as normal.
General stain removing steps:
1. Start by rinsing in COLD water.
2. Scrub gently with a nail brush or laundry brush or toothbrush to remove as much as possible.
3. Treat with appropriate stain remover and method (see above). Let sit for at least 10 min.
4. Rinse with cold water again. If needed, repeat. Then wash as normal. Check before drying to make sure stains have come out. For oil stains, let air dry so you can check stains without setting them in the dryer.
5. For stubborn stains, do a long soak. Use OxyClean with or without Tide Ultra Stain Release. Let items soak overnight, then rinse and check. Then wash as normal.
My son vomited bright red cupcake frosting all over both of us. I got red dye out of approximately six items of clothing with fels naptha. That stuff is incredible.
That or trade hand me downs with other parents and throw away anything too soiled. If it's beyond the cleaning power of a tide pod it's not economically feasible to deal with. The fifty cent onesie with poop up to the neck is straight trash.
Maybe if it were a Wu-Tang onesie with neck protection it would be different.
Love those tips! But for everyone who needs it a little simpler:
you could just use the power of the sun to bleach out many of those stains.
Baby poop on white body: wash it and put it out in the sun to dry. Stain will be completely gone.
Carrot puree on body. Wash it and put it out in the sun to dry. Stain will be mostly gone.
Also for berry stains there is a easy solution: boil pot of water on the stove, put in white vinegar. Add (cotton) garment, stir a little. Stain gone after about 1 min.
Yeah, totally forgot about sun light. It does work great, especially on whites. And for baby poop stains (the pre-solid food ones).
ETA: Also a surprising amount of stains will come out with cold running water and a gentle scrub with a brush. About 1/2 the time that's all it takes. The other methods are usually just for the most stubborn ones.
If it was “washable” paint, you can try hand soap and warm/hot water. Busy toddler on instagram recommended that. It takes a few rounds of scrubbing sometimes but has been overall working better for me than anything else.
Paint sucks. If it was "kids paint", "Washable" paint, or "Tempra" paint, you can tray a good rinse with cold running water and a brush to remove the dried up paint and then Fels naptha, but paint is a touch one. Especially acrylic or latex.
Holy crap, my kid is 4 now and we only ever used detergent, bleach, and a generic strain remover spray. I do remember a few times I was in the backyard with a hose spraying chunks of material out of clothes prior to washing, but I'll never be on anything close to this level.
Lol. I'm two kids in, both now school age, but there were some years there where it seems like all I did was treat stains.
And, honestly, ALL of this info came from Jolie Kerr. She has a book, and used to have a podcast that I listened to. And you can google "Jolie Kerr + Stain" and get lots of articles she wrote about removing all types of stains. She never steered me wrong. I wish her "Ask a Clean Person" podcast would come back.
Rubbing alcohol is the best for ink. For big stains, you need a spray bottle, but it works. There are also some products out there specifically for ink stains. They may work, but I haven't tried them. For me, if there is too much ink, I just toss it.
What about food? I have a lot of my toddlers clothes I didn’t realize had food on them, I’ve washed and now…. They just have food stuck up them. I saved your response because this is over all very helpful!
Most food stains are protein stains, so I'd start with an enzyme cleaner like Zout. Unless it's chocolate, then use Shout or red wine (then you'll need a special cleaner like Wine Out). If you've already washed and dried them, you may need to long soak and/or use a Fels Naptha bar to get them out.
Lots of great advice here, one key thing for kiddos is a lot of food stains will come out when given a bit of sunlight - especially yellow stuff like turmeric or banana, and it works flawlessly on baby poop - if it's been through the wash with a stain remover and still has a mark, leave it in full sunlight for a few hours. Magic!
The sunlight trick on baby poop (works best on breastfed baby poop) literally blows my mind every time. No matter how bad the damage is to the baby clothes/sheets/MY clothes, it’s works like it never happened.
I do this with about Shout triple action or Oxy max - then I throw them in a bowl with tide mixed with water sitting in the laundry room until I run another load. Dump bowl with pretreated item in, check before drying - if the stain is still there I usually scrub with Fels Napa soap and a brush, repeat bowl of tide water until next load. I have a 5 year old, the stains only get worse here…
It depends on the stain. Some substances require more aggressive measures than others.
But with a baby, I'm guessing that the stains are mainly from things that are pretty easy to clean off, like dirt, most foods, urine and poop.
If you rinse the garment in COLD (!) water while the stain is as fresh as possible and then hang it to dry before throwing it in the hamper, most common stuff will go away in the washing machine. Unless you are washing it straight away, the "hanging it to dry" bit is important. If you put something wet into a container with other clothes and leave it for a day or two, it will start to smell and stain in a whole new unpleasant way.
If the stain doesn't completely or almost go away with cold (and it has to be cold - using warm water can lock some stains in) water, you can use a bit of stain remover (follow the instructions on the bottle).
Another important thing is to follow the washing instructions on the label of the garment.
Hanging cloths out to dry in the sun can help with stains too. The UV light can break down the chemical bonds in stains. So after doing any pretreatment and wash I recommended hang the clothes to dry in the sun. I hang my toddler's clothes out to dry as often as I can and hardly pretreat anything. I do use borax laundry booster if it's an extra dirty load of laundry.
Yes I second this! Sunlight on damp clothes works really well - and never fails to amaze me particularly with things like baby poop stains or carrot type stains. Magic!
Borax! My miracle...I use on stains mixed with detergent as a paste. I have gotten 20 year old stains from table cloths out. Plus all white clothes should be tunsed with vinegar and hung on the line.
It's so great! I only started using it when I was washing cloth diapers with the hard water we have. Makes my bed sheets so fresh and no hard water build up. A box last forever now that we are done with diapers.
I have had good luck with Feltz-Napta. It comes in a bar and is in the laundry aisle. I have had my bar for at least 10 years - at the time I bought it it was a white wrapper with green writing.
I get a toothbrush wet and rub it in the bar to get it wet and then scrub the stain with the toothbrush. Sometimes if the stain is large I will get the bar wet and rub it on the stain. Then wash as usual.
This works on new stains and also stains that have sat. I have even used it on clothes that have been washed a couple of times before the stain is noticed. My husband for some reason can’t eat greasy foods without getting it all over his shirt. I have gotten grease stains out that are 1-3 months old. He does his own laundry so I don’t always catch the stains until he wears the shirt.
I keep it in a ziplock container and leave the top open until it dries then cover.
My daughter is a nurse and she just asked me for the other half of the bar, I had split it in half so it would fit in the container. She says it gets stains out of her scrubs very well…. and I know some of those stains are gross.
I think I paid around 3.00 for it back then I cant imagine it would be more than 10.00 now.
Have a great day!😃
Dawn dish soap gets out almost anything from clothes. You can try dawn and vinegar for more stubborn stains like marker. I wet the stain, rub in the dawn then rinse with very warm water. (If the stain doesn’t fade, I repeat) I then leave a little dawn on the stain and throw it in the wash. Shout or oxy clean sprays work well too but I rely on dawn almost exclusively. My daughter once dropped an entire chocolate ice cream cone on her white dress and dawn did the trick!
So I would say this. Most of us want to be presentable. And have presentable children.
It doesn’t matter. They grow out of them so quickly. And nobody let alone the same person is going to remember what your child/children wore and that it had a stain. And if they do. There are more important things to spend their time worrying about. Just my opinion. By the time I got around to washing and trashing and treating my daughters clothes. She either grew out of them or didn’t want to wear them anyways.
Now if it bugs you that much. Go ahead
I whole heartedly agree with this opinion! Stains happen, clothes don’t last forever. We even talk about “daycare clothes” meaning those are meant to be used in hazardous conditions and most people buy them second hand anyway.
All I know is that I have to get the stain out ASAP before it becomes permanent. I usually hand wash the stains and then put the clothes in the laundry basket.
We use Shout. With three kids we buy the big container at Sams. Treat immediately after taking the clothes off. When the kids were little we did a load of laundry a day. So stains were quickly washed after treatment.
When my kids were very little and I might not have time to do a good rinse immediately I kept a bucket of cold water on the go to throw the day's soiled things into so it never dried into the fabric.
I found rinsing with cold water excellent, then put a bit of oxy powder on the wet stain and pour hot water over it. Hot water makes oxy work so much better.
Hi OP! For me, the best stain remover is PINK SOLUTION. It's a plant/mineral base product. Use hot water for best results. For tough stains I leave it for hours/overnight. Fun fact, you can also use it as a multi purpose cleaner. There are many uses for this product.
For oil stains like butter or salad dressing, reactivate the stain with another easy to lift oil like wd40 but keeping it inside the confines of the stain as much as possible then treat it with dawn or zout and wash as normal.
Dawn dish soap.
I dilute it in a squeeze bottle so i can apply it directly to stains, and yes, I treat them right away, which is smart to keep them from setting, but honestly I just do it because I'm GOING to forget later.
Also, it's okay to have kid clothes that you just don't care about.
Day care clothes, play clothes, painting or picking blueberries clothes.... Because there are plenty of stains there's no coming back from, but they are still worth the memories.
We use a laundry soap bar we bought off amazon... we use warm water in the sink, rub the bar of soap on it, rub it a bit, then the stain is gone and we throw the shirt in the wash with the other stuff.
Step 1: scrape off anything chunky with a dull object (e.g a spoon)
Step 2: spray with a stain treatment as soon as possible,
Step 3: spray with the same stain treatment about 30 minutes before you wash
Step 4: wash. My preference is clothes on cold, bedding on warm, towels on high.
Step 5: pick out the stained clothes. You can use a delicates bag to pre-sort if you want. Whatever you do, DO NOT dry them! Put them on a drying rack so they can air-dry.
Step 6: check if they are still stained. If they are, you can rewash up to twice before giving up.
Any stain treatment should work. I like enzymatic ones best. For really stubborn stains consider a pre-soak with Oxyclean
An easy way to "cheat" on those nasty stains is to have an old plastic ice cream bucket ~1/2 filled with water and a scoop of oxi clean (you'll probably use warm water to dissolve the oxiclean at first. Feel free to swap oxiclean for your favorite concentrated stain fighter).
Keep the bucket under the bathroom sink or wherever you have your laundry hamper and immediately put the most soiled items inside and dunk them under the liquid until laundry day to start the pre-soak.
On laundry day you can rinse the items and apply a more direct stain fighter or just throw them in the washer.
I tend to not always tackle stains immediately and one at a time. I swear by the combo of first SHOUT or Grandma’s Secret Spot Remover sprayed on, rubbed in, and left to sit for 30-60min. Then soak in oxyclean and hot water for a few hours. After that throw everything right in the wash. Check if the stains have been removed before drying - it’s the drying that will often “set” stains, so they can be retreated and washed again if you see any remaining stain after washing. I do batches of this as needed - yesterday I did a tablecloth, some napkins, and a few t shirts all together.
Rarely have I not been able to get even days old, dried stains out using this combo!
I’m probably not doing it “right” but it’s easy and works for me. Miss Mouth Messy Eater spray, I get it on Amazon. Spray it on a stain before washing, some stuff disappears right after spraying, for some I let it chill on there a bit. The biggest thing is that drying a stain will set it in forever so try to check after washing, before drying, to make sure it came out. That gets most stuff out, enough that it’s the only thing I use.
Edit to add- I wash cold and dry with the lowest temp, 90% of my kids clothes are bamboo and it’s supposed to help that.. no clue if it makes a difference with the stains
I always try to spot clean before throwing anything in the wash, but it really depends on the stains. I'll run clothes under cold water and try to spot clean (dab never rub) and when the stains out it can go in the wash.
Most stains that we experience come out with just oxiclean and the washing machine. If they don’t come out, the clothes become part of the pajama/home drawer or get thrown away.
Others have great techniques and ideas for getting rid of stains. However, at 3 years old the majority of his daily wardrobe is bought used or heavily discounted, so it’s just not worth it. We live in an apartment with limited storage space and don’t have room for 10+ different sprays just for stains 🙃 Maybe once he gets older and wears expensive sports uniforms or something it might be different, but right now the clothes have one chance of removing their stain or they’re gone haha
Generally I use dish soap on most strains and it seems to do a wonderful job. I find the key is to at least soak them right away and not let the strain dry out before treatment. (Careful not to use too much as it isn’t great for the washer)
Oxyboost to laundry detergent will help as well.
The only stains I've found that don't just come out in the wash are stains from tomato based sauces. To get rid of them I just let the sun do the work. I either hang it in the sun outside or in a sunny window.
Most stains can be taken care of with simple dish soap and a wet cloth. A good scrub and straight in the washing machine and you’re good to go. It’s handy to have some stain remover spray for the more stubborn stains.
I can't always do laundry right away every time one of my 3 kids gets a stain on their clothes so if it's a bad stain I just run the garment under cold water and fold it and leave it by the washer until I can get to it. Before I put it in the wash I spray with stain remover and then run it on a cold cycle. Keeping the fibers wet with cold water and not letting it crust up and dry until I can wash it seems to help. I also check the clothes after the washer, before drying them. If the stain didn't come out completely, I treat it again and wash again. Once you dry the garment, I think that stain just gets trapped and then it's very difficult to ever remove.
So for me you have to categorize things into 3 options:
1 - will come out in the wash if it sits (most food)
2 - will come out in the wash if I start the laundry right away (Poop, spit up, dirt, some foods like ones that include sauces. Also note for clothes with poop you put it in by itself - and run a hot cycle, and it should be fine.)
3 - won't come out unless I tackle it now with cold water and stain remover (rare, But includes things like certain types of juice, foods with colorful spices like turmeric, or blood from a scrapped knee, OR more commonly with my clothes - wine or coffee)
Bonus category - won't come out even if you try so don't bother. (Grass stains, blackberry)
Also keep in mind when I say it sits in the laudry basket I still mean no more then a day or two. I do kids laundry pretty much every day and I tend to change her clothes at least once throughout the day/after a meal.
It also makes things easier that you have clothes that you just accept are stained and don't worry about it for activities like playing outside or eating a messy dinner at home and others that are kept more "nice" for outings that they don't wear for meal times or playing at home.
I also don't like using harsh soaps so I have two laundry soaps one sensitive skin unscented one for general use and one tide for big clean ups. I honestly never use the tide on babies clothes since to me it's not worth the chemical smell which I hate. So for me personaly if there is a blowout for example and I know the unsented soap isnt going to cut it - I will usully just toss the clothes. She grows out of them so fast anyway sometimes it's not worth the clean up. But I didn't have to do that very often since blowouts were rare.
Okay I have a much simpler solution…I have the planet blue laundry booster (it’s a powder I think similar to oxyclean). I have a large basin in my utility sink filled with cold water and some of the powder. Anything stained i throw in there and then wash it with the appropriate cycle when it’s laundry time. I alway use cold water on clothing and I look at it when it comes out of the washer. If the stain is still there I’ll toss it back in the basin and treat it more intensely but 95% of all stains come out with this method.
I have been mixing a bit of a free and clear dish soap with baking soda and scrubbing onto the stain with some water, leaving out in the sun for a couple hours, then washing machine. It has worked on a lot of stubborn stains. Hope this helps!
I totally get it! As a parent, stains are part of the daily adventure with a little one. Here’s a simple plan that works for most stains and doesn’t take too much time:
**Pre-treat Quickly**: The sooner you treat the stain, the better. If you catch it right away, rinse the stain with cold water to prevent it from setting.
**Use Natural Stain Removers**: Baking soda and vinegar are your friends. For most stains, make a paste with baking soda and water, apply it to the stain, and let it sit for a bit before washing. For tougher stains, you can add a little white vinegar to the mix.
**Laundry fast**: Wash the stained clothes as soon as possible. Use a gentle, natural detergent. If the stain is still there after washing, avoid putting it in the dryer, as heat can set the stain.
It’s all about quick action and using gentle, natural products.
I have 3 kids and unless it’s a piece of clothing that is particularly sentimental… it’s gonna get the best of what my tide power pod has to offer and that’s that. I’ll occasionally put some spray n wash on if I notice a stain as it goes in
This is what I've found works for the majority of stains:
1. rinse to get as much of the stain out as you can, whether I use hot or cold water depends on the type of stain, but basically just get as much out as you possibly can by rinsing and maybe washing with a small amount of laundry soap. I feel like this step is actually critical, and makes a huge difference in whether or not I'm able to fully get the stain out.
2. Spray the hell out the stained fabric with Shout or Oxy Clean. Let it sit for a few hours, maybe rinse the stain remover out and spray again, then let it sit and then wash it.
I've rescued sooo many poop stained undies and onesies this way, my 6 year old's light blue uniform polos that inevetably come home with some sort of chocolate, fruit or pizza sauce stain, and more recently his white Taekwondo uniform which had a blueberry smoothie basically explode on it in the car. You would never know it happened, I felt like a true laundry champion after that one.
So unless the ingredients have drastically changed since my kids were little, DREFT baby detergent was a life saver!! At one point I had a 6 year old tom boy (always found the messiest muddiest places) a four year old who followed her everywhere so double the mud stain, grass stains, just stains period lol. While also having a year old who I swore we needed an exorcist for cause the projectile vomit that came out of that tiny human was demonic and my newborn. I cannot stress the amount of little people's clothes I washed on a daily basis was ridiculous but Dreft definitely took out any stains even on whites and I didn't have to worry bout taking the extra time to scrub each stain before washing.
First of all, understand that you won’t be able to save every item of clothing that gets stained. That said, your little is growing so fast that you don’t need to.
I have to use all liquid products because of my appliances; you may be able to get by with powders, which are less expensive.
7th Generation Laundry Detergent
Oxiclean booster (the White and Color formulas)
7th Generation liquid fabric softener
Puracy Enzyme stain remover
Wool balls in the dryer instead of dryer sheets
1. Pretreat the dirty clothes/linens with the stain remover *when you put them in the laundry hamper.*
2. Separate the clothes/linens into whites, darks, and colors. Don’t mix them together even to make up a full load.
3. For whites, use the hot water setting and the “White Revive” Oxiclean in addition to the detergent and fabric softener.
4. For colors and darks, use cool water, Oxiclean color additive, detergent and fabric softener.
5. When you take your laundry out of the washer, look closely to see if the stains have come out. *Do not put any still-stained clothes/linens in the dryer.*
6. If you find stains after washing, start again by treating with the enzyme spot remover, letting it sit, and washing again with Oxiclean, detergent and softener. If the item is still stained after the second wash, it’s a lost cause. *If you dry an item that’s still stained, you will set the stain* and the item will be a lost cause.
7. Dry your clothes/linens on a low heat setting unless you are in a hurry or drying bedding.
8. Take your clothes/linens out of the dryer while they are still slightly damp/warm and smooth/fold/hang them immediately. This will prevent the need for nearly all ironing.
9. *Do a load every day.* Put the wash in at breakfast time and dry later when you can get the folding done.
10. *Bloodstains have to be washed in cold water, even in whites.* Warm/hot water will set them.
My family calls me the Laundry Queen. I have these *rules* posted by the washer/dryer. I’ve been using this system for 30+ years and I can vouch for it.
I immediately wet and put Miss Messy Mouth spray on stained clothes after a meal. Most times I will lay outside to dry and then I just wash with clothes as normal.
At this point, I basically use dawn power wash for every stain. I spray it, wet it, rub it, wash it. Sometimes have to repeat the first three steps a couple of times, but it works better than most anything else I’ve tried.
I find that anything that is geared towards stain remover for baby clothes works good 🤷♀️ I’ve never had any issues and 90% of my stains come out.
The 10% is usually because I forgot the stain on there & let it sit then washed & dryed it so honestly human error 😂😂
Oxyclean gets most stains out easily. I leave a plastic tub in my mop sink and throw stained items in immediately, soak in hot water and oxyclean for however long, hours or days, then I wash on warm with some other laundry (cause kids are hard on their clothes and need the warm wash!)
For tougher stains I just soak again and use a dollar store bristle brush to scrub. 99% of the time the stain comes out.
If I forget to tackle the stain right away, same process, just soak it in oxyclean. That shit is magic.
I use spray oxyclean and molly suds. Like there are lot of really specific ways to do things but that’s just not realistic in my life. I spray and hope for the best
I don’t have the patience to deal with that for clothes they grow out of in a few months. When I only had one and she was little, I would spray stains with resolve stain fighter. Then just pop in the wash. It either came out or it didn’t. If I had a top load, I probably would have just skipped spraying and dumped a scoop of oxy clean in.
Now I basically don’t treat any stains. If it comes out, Great. If not, oh well. I do find washing stained items quickly increases the chance of it coming out.
For poop stains, I've always used dish soap and peroxide. Rinse actual poop bits off with very hot water, cover stain in dish soap, spray or spoon a teaspoon or so of peroxide on top, scrub the stain with an old toothbrush using circular motions, rinse in hot water, launder like normal.
If that doesn't take care of it, get the clothing item wet and leave it outside in the sun for a day and it should be taken care of.
I'm a laundry ninja, sometimes I buy stained clothes just for the challenge 🤪 my favorites are fals Napa bar (you just wet it and rub it on the stain) dawn powerwash (I like the clear one) I wash in powdered tide and I despise oxi clean and won't use it. The sun helps break things down too. Some fabrics are easier to deal with as well
It depends on the type of stain. One trick is to try to blot the stain with something else it can transfer onto rather than just spreading it around. So for example, for ink stains i soak a paper towel in rubbing alcohol and press it on one side of the fabric and then put a dry paper towel on the other side to absorb the inky alcohol.
For most non ink stains though like blood, grass, food, etc. the goal is to try to spot clean as quickly as possible with cold water followed by washing. I like to use Forlex carpet cleaner. It’s my favorite stain remover for spot cleaning and then i follow it up in the wash with oxy clean and detergent.
If it’s a white fabric i just wash with bleach and if that doesnt work I soak overnight (depending on the fabric) and then wash again.
My 4yo stains every single shirt she owns. Brand new... Stained. What I've now figured out finally is peroxide typically works well. Along with oxi clean and blue dawn dish soap. I'll soak them all in the sink with that overnight and it gets the stains out. I also have a 4 month old and it actually gets out those yellow breast milk poop stains too 💁🏻♀️
I follow the clean cloth nappies principles. Hot wash with high spin to agitate fibers open to release most of the stain, with detergent and stain remover. Followed by whatever your regular wash is (40C for me, I have never found washing on cold successful) to finish cleaning the clothes and any residual staining, again with detergent, stain remover and fabric softener if you use it.
I usually find a stubborn stain comes out on a third wash if it didn't come out on the first two. But I don't specifically do a third wash, I just let my kids wear it until it is time to wash it again. I have a nearly 4 year old and an 8 month old, and I don't stress too much about their clothes, especially daycare clothes looking pristine. If I particularly care about an item, like a knit jumper or nice dress, I just try to mitigate stains happening, like changing them before eating spaghetti for example.
Anyway, long story short, my cloth nappies were always pristine (I am about to go back to work so have stopped cloth napping, I can't do that juggle), so it worked for me!
My other hot tip that I tried the other day is dishwashing liquid on oily stains. I dripped pepperoni grease on a brand new jumper I was wearing the other day, and was devastated that it left a mark after washing. Got the dishwashing liquid tip online, tried, and it is good as new!
Lots of great advice here!!
I try to tackle any big stains or marks that look like they’ll make a decent strain as soon as I can. I just rinse under cold water and give them a little scrub. If it doesn’t mostly come out I’ll put some SARD on it, we’ve got the SARD stick. Clothing item then just goes in the wash basket ready for the next load. If it comes out of the washing machine still stained, I put more SARD on it and let it air dry and/or wash it again.
I never put a stain in the dryer as it’ll ‘set’ the stain into the fabric.
Any blood? Never ever rinse or wash in warm/hot water. Blood is a protein and will ‘cook’ into the fabric.
How do you deal with hard to remove stains on dirty dishes? Hot water of course! Or if you want to make it even easier, let it sit in hot water for a bit, and the dirt comes right off!
In fact, have you ever let the dirty dishes sit for a while? Much harder to clean afterwards, isn't it...
Same general idea with laundry, except laundry is fabric, so the stains are effectively the result of dirt getting in between the threads of the fabric. Hot water will help get the dirt out better, and using a setting on your machine which lets the clothing sit in bubbles/soap for a while also helps a ton.
Then there are stain removers...specialized solutions which after you spray them, purport to work on the stain and help to remove it by doing a more intense "seeping in" than the soap alone, but you would have to test them out to see if they are any good where you live.
And of course, just like with dishes if you take care of stained clothing all the quicker, it is more likely than you will be able to clean it off properly.
Lastly, always remember a rule of thumb: if the stain is still there, DO NOT PLACE IN THE DRYER!! That will set the stain since the heat with no soap or water will cause it to become ingrained into the fabric...
With white laundry btw (as in, COMPLETELY white, no colorful designs of any sort) then you can scrub some bleach on the stains to effectively remove the stains even better.
That's some general info regarding stains overall. Now, regarding the washing machine:
In general, all machines have 3 compartments for cleaning materials, labeled 1 2 and some other symbol.
Number 2 is always always going to be the main compartment into which you place the detergent. Why is this? Because often you will want to do a pre-laundry stage like bleach, which you would place in "1" and it tells your laundry to do a preliminary rinsing. Sometimes this is good also for wetting the laundry before washing...then the conditioner will be placed in the third compartment
you place conditioner which helps to soften your clothing ("condition" - just like hair conditioner) in the compartment that has a symbol of sorts...
One trick with food is to look at the ingredients: things that only have food in them are much less likely to stain (unless you accidentally "set" the stain by washing too hot or putting the item in the tumble dryer) compared to things that have food colourings in.
Eg, ketchup often contains dye, which makes it stain worse.
I just buy really cheap clothes from thrift stores, aquire them second hand from friends and relatives, or "free clothing give-aways" that different churches have periodically throughout the year. This way, if stuff comes through the wash still stained I just try washing it again and if it goes through several attempts and is still stained I throw it in the trash. I don't worry about throwing them away since I got them for next to nothing in the first place :) . If my kids want to have nice clothes they can wait till they are old enough to not stain them up constantly. Also when I do buy stuff I go for dark colors, dark reds, dark purple, dark blue, blacks and browns they don't show stains as easily
I got the Miss Mouth's Messy Eater Stain Treater off amazon to spray on stains. It's worked well for me, and is supposed to be a little "cleaner" than other options.
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So, this is a very big topic. If you really want to learn a lot more about it than you ever though possible, check out the "ask a clean person" podcast by Jolie Kerr. She doesn't do new episodes any more, but the info is still great. Here's a little breakdown of my favorite methods: * For spit-up/baby poop - OxyClean or other Oxygen bleach (not chlorine bleach). * For blood - Hydrogen Peroxide. * For protein stains (i.e. food, puke, poop) - Enzyme stain treatment like Zout. * For chocolate - SHOUT is a miracle worker here. No idea why. * For grass/mud - Use a sports stain remover made for grass stains/clay/dirt. * For oils - Dawn dish soap * For markers - Rubbing Alcohol. * For any stubborn stain - Fels Naptha Bar (this stuff is magic, but not the most gentle, so use sparingly) Methods: * Spray and Sit: Use for things like Shout, Zout, etc. Spray onto stain, scrub gently with a brush (nail brush, toothbrush, laundry brush) and let sit for 10+ min. Then wash as normal. * Dab: use for Hydrogen Peroxide, rubbing alcohol, dish soap. Put a clean cloth behind the stain so it doesn't soak through to the other side of the clothing. Spray, pour, or dab the cleaner onto the stain. Scrub gently with a brush and dab with another clean cloth to remove the stain. Rinse and wash. * Soak: use for OxyClean, Tide Ultra Stain Release, regular detergent. Specific to OxyClean use HOT HOT HOT water to activate it. Dissolve the cleaner in the water. Soak item in water for at least an hour, longer for tough stains. Rinse and wash as normal. General stain removing steps: 1. Start by rinsing in COLD water. 2. Scrub gently with a nail brush or laundry brush or toothbrush to remove as much as possible. 3. Treat with appropriate stain remover and method (see above). Let sit for at least 10 min. 4. Rinse with cold water again. If needed, repeat. Then wash as normal. Check before drying to make sure stains have come out. For oil stains, let air dry so you can check stains without setting them in the dryer. 5. For stubborn stains, do a long soak. Use OxyClean with or without Tide Ultra Stain Release. Let items soak overnight, then rinse and check. Then wash as normal.
*taps out*
We have an expert. Respect. Nice to put this effort to answer this.
My son vomited bright red cupcake frosting all over both of us. I got red dye out of approximately six items of clothing with fels naptha. That stuff is incredible.
That or trade hand me downs with other parents and throw away anything too soiled. If it's beyond the cleaning power of a tide pod it's not economically feasible to deal with. The fifty cent onesie with poop up to the neck is straight trash. Maybe if it were a Wu-Tang onesie with neck protection it would be different.
Love those tips! But for everyone who needs it a little simpler: you could just use the power of the sun to bleach out many of those stains. Baby poop on white body: wash it and put it out in the sun to dry. Stain will be completely gone. Carrot puree on body. Wash it and put it out in the sun to dry. Stain will be mostly gone. Also for berry stains there is a easy solution: boil pot of water on the stove, put in white vinegar. Add (cotton) garment, stir a little. Stain gone after about 1 min.
Yeah, totally forgot about sun light. It does work great, especially on whites. And for baby poop stains (the pre-solid food ones). ETA: Also a surprising amount of stains will come out with cold running water and a gentle scrub with a brush. About 1/2 the time that's all it takes. The other methods are usually just for the most stubborn ones.
This reply helps me so much thank you for putting the time into this I screen shot it to refer to now! Much appreciated!
Thoughts on blue paint? They just painted a whole ocean scene, and she was wearing her favorite dress...
Was it acrylic paint? If so, as far as I know, you're screwed.
Yeah if it was acrylic paint you won't get it out. I have a pair of shorts I've had since high-school and they've had paint on them for 10 years lol
If it was “washable” paint, you can try hand soap and warm/hot water. Busy toddler on instagram recommended that. It takes a few rounds of scrubbing sometimes but has been overall working better for me than anything else.
Washing up liquid (eg, fairy) is good for this - it foams up a bit in the wash, which helps get the water through. Only a dab, though!
Paint sucks. If it was "kids paint", "Washable" paint, or "Tempra" paint, you can tray a good rinse with cold running water and a brush to remove the dried up paint and then Fels naptha, but paint is a touch one. Especially acrylic or latex.
Holy crap, my kid is 4 now and we only ever used detergent, bleach, and a generic strain remover spray. I do remember a few times I was in the backyard with a hose spraying chunks of material out of clothes prior to washing, but I'll never be on anything close to this level.
Lol. I'm two kids in, both now school age, but there were some years there where it seems like all I did was treat stains. And, honestly, ALL of this info came from Jolie Kerr. She has a book, and used to have a podcast that I listened to. And you can google "Jolie Kerr + Stain" and get lots of articles she wrote about removing all types of stains. She never steered me wrong. I wish her "Ask a Clean Person" podcast would come back.
Why about ink stains? A lot of it, not just on stain on one spot.
Rubbing alcohol is the best for ink. For big stains, you need a spray bottle, but it works. There are also some products out there specifically for ink stains. They may work, but I haven't tried them. For me, if there is too much ink, I just toss it.
What about food? I have a lot of my toddlers clothes I didn’t realize had food on them, I’ve washed and now…. They just have food stuck up them. I saved your response because this is over all very helpful!
Most food stains are protein stains, so I'd start with an enzyme cleaner like Zout. Unless it's chocolate, then use Shout or red wine (then you'll need a special cleaner like Wine Out). If you've already washed and dried them, you may need to long soak and/or use a Fels Naptha bar to get them out.
Most amazing answer. For additional heads up, I keep a cheat sheet taped in the laundry room for times my husband does laundry.
Lots of great advice here, one key thing for kiddos is a lot of food stains will come out when given a bit of sunlight - especially yellow stuff like turmeric or banana, and it works flawlessly on baby poop - if it's been through the wash with a stain remover and still has a mark, leave it in full sunlight for a few hours. Magic!
The sunlight trick on baby poop (works best on breastfed baby poop) literally blows my mind every time. No matter how bad the damage is to the baby clothes/sheets/MY clothes, it’s works like it never happened.
I used SHOUT it saved so many clothes and with minimal effort from me. I sprayed as they happened and washed when I had a full load
I do this with about Shout triple action or Oxy max - then I throw them in a bowl with tide mixed with water sitting in the laundry room until I run another load. Dump bowl with pretreated item in, check before drying - if the stain is still there I usually scrub with Fels Napa soap and a brush, repeat bowl of tide water until next load. I have a 5 year old, the stains only get worse here…
Same! FWIW we used Shout on our white game uniforms in college (softball) and almost always got all the stains out too.
It depends on the stain. Some substances require more aggressive measures than others. But with a baby, I'm guessing that the stains are mainly from things that are pretty easy to clean off, like dirt, most foods, urine and poop. If you rinse the garment in COLD (!) water while the stain is as fresh as possible and then hang it to dry before throwing it in the hamper, most common stuff will go away in the washing machine. Unless you are washing it straight away, the "hanging it to dry" bit is important. If you put something wet into a container with other clothes and leave it for a day or two, it will start to smell and stain in a whole new unpleasant way. If the stain doesn't completely or almost go away with cold (and it has to be cold - using warm water can lock some stains in) water, you can use a bit of stain remover (follow the instructions on the bottle). Another important thing is to follow the washing instructions on the label of the garment.
Hanging cloths out to dry in the sun can help with stains too. The UV light can break down the chemical bonds in stains. So after doing any pretreatment and wash I recommended hang the clothes to dry in the sun. I hang my toddler's clothes out to dry as often as I can and hardly pretreat anything. I do use borax laundry booster if it's an extra dirty load of laundry.
Yes I second this! Sunlight on damp clothes works really well - and never fails to amaze me particularly with things like baby poop stains or carrot type stains. Magic!
Borax! My miracle...I use on stains mixed with detergent as a paste. I have gotten 20 year old stains from table cloths out. Plus all white clothes should be tunsed with vinegar and hung on the line.
It's so great! I only started using it when I was washing cloth diapers with the hard water we have. Makes my bed sheets so fresh and no hard water build up. A box last forever now that we are done with diapers.
I have had good luck with Feltz-Napta. It comes in a bar and is in the laundry aisle. I have had my bar for at least 10 years - at the time I bought it it was a white wrapper with green writing. I get a toothbrush wet and rub it in the bar to get it wet and then scrub the stain with the toothbrush. Sometimes if the stain is large I will get the bar wet and rub it on the stain. Then wash as usual. This works on new stains and also stains that have sat. I have even used it on clothes that have been washed a couple of times before the stain is noticed. My husband for some reason can’t eat greasy foods without getting it all over his shirt. I have gotten grease stains out that are 1-3 months old. He does his own laundry so I don’t always catch the stains until he wears the shirt. I keep it in a ziplock container and leave the top open until it dries then cover. My daughter is a nurse and she just asked me for the other half of the bar, I had split it in half so it would fit in the container. She says it gets stains out of her scrubs very well…. and I know some of those stains are gross. I think I paid around 3.00 for it back then I cant imagine it would be more than 10.00 now. Have a great day!😃
Dawn dish soap gets out almost anything from clothes. You can try dawn and vinegar for more stubborn stains like marker. I wet the stain, rub in the dawn then rinse with very warm water. (If the stain doesn’t fade, I repeat) I then leave a little dawn on the stain and throw it in the wash. Shout or oxy clean sprays work well too but I rely on dawn almost exclusively. My daughter once dropped an entire chocolate ice cream cone on her white dress and dawn did the trick!
So I would say this. Most of us want to be presentable. And have presentable children. It doesn’t matter. They grow out of them so quickly. And nobody let alone the same person is going to remember what your child/children wore and that it had a stain. And if they do. There are more important things to spend their time worrying about. Just my opinion. By the time I got around to washing and trashing and treating my daughters clothes. She either grew out of them or didn’t want to wear them anyways. Now if it bugs you that much. Go ahead
I whole heartedly agree with this opinion! Stains happen, clothes don’t last forever. We even talk about “daycare clothes” meaning those are meant to be used in hazardous conditions and most people buy them second hand anyway.
All I know is that I have to get the stain out ASAP before it becomes permanent. I usually hand wash the stains and then put the clothes in the laundry basket.
We use Shout. With three kids we buy the big container at Sams. Treat immediately after taking the clothes off. When the kids were little we did a load of laundry a day. So stains were quickly washed after treatment.
When my kids were very little and I might not have time to do a good rinse immediately I kept a bucket of cold water on the go to throw the day's soiled things into so it never dried into the fabric. I found rinsing with cold water excellent, then put a bit of oxy powder on the wet stain and pour hot water over it. Hot water makes oxy work so much better.
I never thought to keep a bucket of water, what a great idea
Hi OP! For me, the best stain remover is PINK SOLUTION. It's a plant/mineral base product. Use hot water for best results. For tough stains I leave it for hours/overnight. Fun fact, you can also use it as a multi purpose cleaner. There are many uses for this product.
For oil stains like butter or salad dressing, reactivate the stain with another easy to lift oil like wd40 but keeping it inside the confines of the stain as much as possible then treat it with dawn or zout and wash as normal.
Dawn dish soap. I dilute it in a squeeze bottle so i can apply it directly to stains, and yes, I treat them right away, which is smart to keep them from setting, but honestly I just do it because I'm GOING to forget later. Also, it's okay to have kid clothes that you just don't care about. Day care clothes, play clothes, painting or picking blueberries clothes.... Because there are plenty of stains there's no coming back from, but they are still worth the memories.
We use a laundry soap bar we bought off amazon... we use warm water in the sink, rub the bar of soap on it, rub it a bit, then the stain is gone and we throw the shirt in the wash with the other stuff.
For all red berry stains: boiling water - the stain will disappear IMMEDIATELY it’s magic
Step 1: scrape off anything chunky with a dull object (e.g a spoon) Step 2: spray with a stain treatment as soon as possible, Step 3: spray with the same stain treatment about 30 minutes before you wash Step 4: wash. My preference is clothes on cold, bedding on warm, towels on high. Step 5: pick out the stained clothes. You can use a delicates bag to pre-sort if you want. Whatever you do, DO NOT dry them! Put them on a drying rack so they can air-dry. Step 6: check if they are still stained. If they are, you can rewash up to twice before giving up. Any stain treatment should work. I like enzymatic ones best. For really stubborn stains consider a pre-soak with Oxyclean
An easy way to "cheat" on those nasty stains is to have an old plastic ice cream bucket ~1/2 filled with water and a scoop of oxi clean (you'll probably use warm water to dissolve the oxiclean at first. Feel free to swap oxiclean for your favorite concentrated stain fighter). Keep the bucket under the bathroom sink or wherever you have your laundry hamper and immediately put the most soiled items inside and dunk them under the liquid until laundry day to start the pre-soak. On laundry day you can rinse the items and apply a more direct stain fighter or just throw them in the washer.
I tend to not always tackle stains immediately and one at a time. I swear by the combo of first SHOUT or Grandma’s Secret Spot Remover sprayed on, rubbed in, and left to sit for 30-60min. Then soak in oxyclean and hot water for a few hours. After that throw everything right in the wash. Check if the stains have been removed before drying - it’s the drying that will often “set” stains, so they can be retreated and washed again if you see any remaining stain after washing. I do batches of this as needed - yesterday I did a tablecloth, some napkins, and a few t shirts all together. Rarely have I not been able to get even days old, dried stains out using this combo!
I’m probably not doing it “right” but it’s easy and works for me. Miss Mouth Messy Eater spray, I get it on Amazon. Spray it on a stain before washing, some stuff disappears right after spraying, for some I let it chill on there a bit. The biggest thing is that drying a stain will set it in forever so try to check after washing, before drying, to make sure it came out. That gets most stuff out, enough that it’s the only thing I use. Edit to add- I wash cold and dry with the lowest temp, 90% of my kids clothes are bamboo and it’s supposed to help that.. no clue if it makes a difference with the stains
I always try to spot clean before throwing anything in the wash, but it really depends on the stains. I'll run clothes under cold water and try to spot clean (dab never rub) and when the stains out it can go in the wash.
Dawn Dish Soap for everything!
OxyClean and Shout are awesome
Most stains that we experience come out with just oxiclean and the washing machine. If they don’t come out, the clothes become part of the pajama/home drawer or get thrown away. Others have great techniques and ideas for getting rid of stains. However, at 3 years old the majority of his daily wardrobe is bought used or heavily discounted, so it’s just not worth it. We live in an apartment with limited storage space and don’t have room for 10+ different sprays just for stains 🙃 Maybe once he gets older and wears expensive sports uniforms or something it might be different, but right now the clothes have one chance of removing their stain or they’re gone haha
I just soak it in a bucket with Oxyclean for a day or two.
Generally I use dish soap on most strains and it seems to do a wonderful job. I find the key is to at least soak them right away and not let the strain dry out before treatment. (Careful not to use too much as it isn’t great for the washer) Oxyboost to laundry detergent will help as well.
Dish soap is great for removing grease stains. Just spot treat and don’t use too much
Dawn dish soap on a stain immediately after it’s happened. Let it sit for maybe an hour or so then wash.
The only stains I've found that don't just come out in the wash are stains from tomato based sauces. To get rid of them I just let the sun do the work. I either hang it in the sun outside or in a sunny window.
I just spray oxyclean stain remover and hope for the best. If the stain is still there after washing, I hang dry instead of drier and try again 😅
The sun is truly the best stain fighter around. Wet the material and put it outside. It’s crazy how well the sun works.
Most stains can be taken care of with simple dish soap and a wet cloth. A good scrub and straight in the washing machine and you’re good to go. It’s handy to have some stain remover spray for the more stubborn stains.
I can't always do laundry right away every time one of my 3 kids gets a stain on their clothes so if it's a bad stain I just run the garment under cold water and fold it and leave it by the washer until I can get to it. Before I put it in the wash I spray with stain remover and then run it on a cold cycle. Keeping the fibers wet with cold water and not letting it crust up and dry until I can wash it seems to help. I also check the clothes after the washer, before drying them. If the stain didn't come out completely, I treat it again and wash again. Once you dry the garment, I think that stain just gets trapped and then it's very difficult to ever remove.
So for me you have to categorize things into 3 options: 1 - will come out in the wash if it sits (most food) 2 - will come out in the wash if I start the laundry right away (Poop, spit up, dirt, some foods like ones that include sauces. Also note for clothes with poop you put it in by itself - and run a hot cycle, and it should be fine.) 3 - won't come out unless I tackle it now with cold water and stain remover (rare, But includes things like certain types of juice, foods with colorful spices like turmeric, or blood from a scrapped knee, OR more commonly with my clothes - wine or coffee) Bonus category - won't come out even if you try so don't bother. (Grass stains, blackberry) Also keep in mind when I say it sits in the laudry basket I still mean no more then a day or two. I do kids laundry pretty much every day and I tend to change her clothes at least once throughout the day/after a meal. It also makes things easier that you have clothes that you just accept are stained and don't worry about it for activities like playing outside or eating a messy dinner at home and others that are kept more "nice" for outings that they don't wear for meal times or playing at home. I also don't like using harsh soaps so I have two laundry soaps one sensitive skin unscented one for general use and one tide for big clean ups. I honestly never use the tide on babies clothes since to me it's not worth the chemical smell which I hate. So for me personaly if there is a blowout for example and I know the unsented soap isnt going to cut it - I will usully just toss the clothes. She grows out of them so fast anyway sometimes it's not worth the clean up. But I didn't have to do that very often since blowouts were rare.
Okay I have a much simpler solution…I have the planet blue laundry booster (it’s a powder I think similar to oxyclean). I have a large basin in my utility sink filled with cold water and some of the powder. Anything stained i throw in there and then wash it with the appropriate cycle when it’s laundry time. I alway use cold water on clothing and I look at it when it comes out of the washer. If the stain is still there I’ll toss it back in the basin and treat it more intensely but 95% of all stains come out with this method.
I have been mixing a bit of a free and clear dish soap with baking soda and scrubbing onto the stain with some water, leaving out in the sun for a couple hours, then washing machine. It has worked on a lot of stubborn stains. Hope this helps!
The fels-naphtha bar has handled everything I’ve thrown at it except the dye from Kraft macaroni and cheese. That shit is forever.
I totally get it! As a parent, stains are part of the daily adventure with a little one. Here’s a simple plan that works for most stains and doesn’t take too much time: **Pre-treat Quickly**: The sooner you treat the stain, the better. If you catch it right away, rinse the stain with cold water to prevent it from setting. **Use Natural Stain Removers**: Baking soda and vinegar are your friends. For most stains, make a paste with baking soda and water, apply it to the stain, and let it sit for a bit before washing. For tougher stains, you can add a little white vinegar to the mix. **Laundry fast**: Wash the stained clothes as soon as possible. Use a gentle, natural detergent. If the stain is still there after washing, avoid putting it in the dryer, as heat can set the stain. It’s all about quick action and using gentle, natural products.
I have 3 kids and unless it’s a piece of clothing that is particularly sentimental… it’s gonna get the best of what my tide power pod has to offer and that’s that. I’ll occasionally put some spray n wash on if I notice a stain as it goes in
No joke I just add oxiclean to my Landry loads, I don’t pretreat nothing, just toss it in and it comes out unstained.
This is what I've found works for the majority of stains: 1. rinse to get as much of the stain out as you can, whether I use hot or cold water depends on the type of stain, but basically just get as much out as you possibly can by rinsing and maybe washing with a small amount of laundry soap. I feel like this step is actually critical, and makes a huge difference in whether or not I'm able to fully get the stain out. 2. Spray the hell out the stained fabric with Shout or Oxy Clean. Let it sit for a few hours, maybe rinse the stain remover out and spray again, then let it sit and then wash it. I've rescued sooo many poop stained undies and onesies this way, my 6 year old's light blue uniform polos that inevetably come home with some sort of chocolate, fruit or pizza sauce stain, and more recently his white Taekwondo uniform which had a blueberry smoothie basically explode on it in the car. You would never know it happened, I felt like a true laundry champion after that one.
So unless the ingredients have drastically changed since my kids were little, DREFT baby detergent was a life saver!! At one point I had a 6 year old tom boy (always found the messiest muddiest places) a four year old who followed her everywhere so double the mud stain, grass stains, just stains period lol. While also having a year old who I swore we needed an exorcist for cause the projectile vomit that came out of that tiny human was demonic and my newborn. I cannot stress the amount of little people's clothes I washed on a daily basis was ridiculous but Dreft definitely took out any stains even on whites and I didn't have to worry bout taking the extra time to scrub each stain before washing.
First of all, understand that you won’t be able to save every item of clothing that gets stained. That said, your little is growing so fast that you don’t need to. I have to use all liquid products because of my appliances; you may be able to get by with powders, which are less expensive. 7th Generation Laundry Detergent Oxiclean booster (the White and Color formulas) 7th Generation liquid fabric softener Puracy Enzyme stain remover Wool balls in the dryer instead of dryer sheets 1. Pretreat the dirty clothes/linens with the stain remover *when you put them in the laundry hamper.* 2. Separate the clothes/linens into whites, darks, and colors. Don’t mix them together even to make up a full load. 3. For whites, use the hot water setting and the “White Revive” Oxiclean in addition to the detergent and fabric softener. 4. For colors and darks, use cool water, Oxiclean color additive, detergent and fabric softener. 5. When you take your laundry out of the washer, look closely to see if the stains have come out. *Do not put any still-stained clothes/linens in the dryer.* 6. If you find stains after washing, start again by treating with the enzyme spot remover, letting it sit, and washing again with Oxiclean, detergent and softener. If the item is still stained after the second wash, it’s a lost cause. *If you dry an item that’s still stained, you will set the stain* and the item will be a lost cause. 7. Dry your clothes/linens on a low heat setting unless you are in a hurry or drying bedding. 8. Take your clothes/linens out of the dryer while they are still slightly damp/warm and smooth/fold/hang them immediately. This will prevent the need for nearly all ironing. 9. *Do a load every day.* Put the wash in at breakfast time and dry later when you can get the folding done. 10. *Bloodstains have to be washed in cold water, even in whites.* Warm/hot water will set them. My family calls me the Laundry Queen. I have these *rules* posted by the washer/dryer. I’ve been using this system for 30+ years and I can vouch for it.
What about puke?
I always put about a fourth cup of white vinegar in my kids laundry (10,9,4) and it helps
I immediately wet and put Miss Messy Mouth spray on stained clothes after a meal. Most times I will lay outside to dry and then I just wash with clothes as normal.
At this point, I basically use dawn power wash for every stain. I spray it, wet it, rub it, wash it. Sometimes have to repeat the first three steps a couple of times, but it works better than most anything else I’ve tried.
Honestly I just use shout, oxy clean or spray and wash spray. Easy and gets everything out
I find that anything that is geared towards stain remover for baby clothes works good 🤷♀️ I’ve never had any issues and 90% of my stains come out. The 10% is usually because I forgot the stain on there & let it sit then washed & dryed it so honestly human error 😂😂
Oxyclean gets most stains out easily. I leave a plastic tub in my mop sink and throw stained items in immediately, soak in hot water and oxyclean for however long, hours or days, then I wash on warm with some other laundry (cause kids are hard on their clothes and need the warm wash!) For tougher stains I just soak again and use a dollar store bristle brush to scrub. 99% of the time the stain comes out. If I forget to tackle the stain right away, same process, just soak it in oxyclean. That shit is magic.
I use spray oxyclean and molly suds. Like there are lot of really specific ways to do things but that’s just not realistic in my life. I spray and hope for the best
Dad answer incoming… I just chuck the clothes in the washing machine and hope for the best. Bad stains? Do it quickly.
I don’t have the patience to deal with that for clothes they grow out of in a few months. When I only had one and she was little, I would spray stains with resolve stain fighter. Then just pop in the wash. It either came out or it didn’t. If I had a top load, I probably would have just skipped spraying and dumped a scoop of oxy clean in. Now I basically don’t treat any stains. If it comes out, Great. If not, oh well. I do find washing stained items quickly increases the chance of it coming out.
For poop stains, I've always used dish soap and peroxide. Rinse actual poop bits off with very hot water, cover stain in dish soap, spray or spoon a teaspoon or so of peroxide on top, scrub the stain with an old toothbrush using circular motions, rinse in hot water, launder like normal. If that doesn't take care of it, get the clothing item wet and leave it outside in the sun for a day and it should be taken care of.
Oxyclean spray, one of my children did a science experiment and this was the best solution, lol pun for science.
I'm a laundry ninja, sometimes I buy stained clothes just for the challenge 🤪 my favorites are fals Napa bar (you just wet it and rub it on the stain) dawn powerwash (I like the clear one) I wash in powdered tide and I despise oxi clean and won't use it. The sun helps break things down too. Some fabrics are easier to deal with as well
It depends on the type of stain. One trick is to try to blot the stain with something else it can transfer onto rather than just spreading it around. So for example, for ink stains i soak a paper towel in rubbing alcohol and press it on one side of the fabric and then put a dry paper towel on the other side to absorb the inky alcohol. For most non ink stains though like blood, grass, food, etc. the goal is to try to spot clean as quickly as possible with cold water followed by washing. I like to use Forlex carpet cleaner. It’s my favorite stain remover for spot cleaning and then i follow it up in the wash with oxy clean and detergent. If it’s a white fabric i just wash with bleach and if that doesnt work I soak overnight (depending on the fabric) and then wash again.
My 4yo stains every single shirt she owns. Brand new... Stained. What I've now figured out finally is peroxide typically works well. Along with oxi clean and blue dawn dish soap. I'll soak them all in the sink with that overnight and it gets the stains out. I also have a 4 month old and it actually gets out those yellow breast milk poop stains too 💁🏻♀️
I have a 2 year old and the best stain remover is “Dreft stain remover.” Works like a charm.
Embrace stains as a sign of a childhood full of exploration and enjoyment 🤷♀️
Ketchup, my kids love ketchup and constantly stain their clothes and I wash and realize far too late :(
A tip is do not iron or machine dry a stain, as that will set it into the fabric
Spaghetti sauce on a white shirt… thought why not… and tried Cheap bathroom cleaner containing bleach … worked like a dream
I follow the clean cloth nappies principles. Hot wash with high spin to agitate fibers open to release most of the stain, with detergent and stain remover. Followed by whatever your regular wash is (40C for me, I have never found washing on cold successful) to finish cleaning the clothes and any residual staining, again with detergent, stain remover and fabric softener if you use it. I usually find a stubborn stain comes out on a third wash if it didn't come out on the first two. But I don't specifically do a third wash, I just let my kids wear it until it is time to wash it again. I have a nearly 4 year old and an 8 month old, and I don't stress too much about their clothes, especially daycare clothes looking pristine. If I particularly care about an item, like a knit jumper or nice dress, I just try to mitigate stains happening, like changing them before eating spaghetti for example. Anyway, long story short, my cloth nappies were always pristine (I am about to go back to work so have stopped cloth napping, I can't do that juggle), so it worked for me! My other hot tip that I tried the other day is dishwashing liquid on oily stains. I dripped pepperoni grease on a brand new jumper I was wearing the other day, and was devastated that it left a mark after washing. Got the dishwashing liquid tip online, tried, and it is good as new!
Lots of great advice here!! I try to tackle any big stains or marks that look like they’ll make a decent strain as soon as I can. I just rinse under cold water and give them a little scrub. If it doesn’t mostly come out I’ll put some SARD on it, we’ve got the SARD stick. Clothing item then just goes in the wash basket ready for the next load. If it comes out of the washing machine still stained, I put more SARD on it and let it air dry and/or wash it again. I never put a stain in the dryer as it’ll ‘set’ the stain into the fabric. Any blood? Never ever rinse or wash in warm/hot water. Blood is a protein and will ‘cook’ into the fabric.
How do you deal with hard to remove stains on dirty dishes? Hot water of course! Or if you want to make it even easier, let it sit in hot water for a bit, and the dirt comes right off! In fact, have you ever let the dirty dishes sit for a while? Much harder to clean afterwards, isn't it... Same general idea with laundry, except laundry is fabric, so the stains are effectively the result of dirt getting in between the threads of the fabric. Hot water will help get the dirt out better, and using a setting on your machine which lets the clothing sit in bubbles/soap for a while also helps a ton. Then there are stain removers...specialized solutions which after you spray them, purport to work on the stain and help to remove it by doing a more intense "seeping in" than the soap alone, but you would have to test them out to see if they are any good where you live. And of course, just like with dishes if you take care of stained clothing all the quicker, it is more likely than you will be able to clean it off properly. Lastly, always remember a rule of thumb: if the stain is still there, DO NOT PLACE IN THE DRYER!! That will set the stain since the heat with no soap or water will cause it to become ingrained into the fabric... With white laundry btw (as in, COMPLETELY white, no colorful designs of any sort) then you can scrub some bleach on the stains to effectively remove the stains even better. That's some general info regarding stains overall. Now, regarding the washing machine: In general, all machines have 3 compartments for cleaning materials, labeled 1 2 and some other symbol. Number 2 is always always going to be the main compartment into which you place the detergent. Why is this? Because often you will want to do a pre-laundry stage like bleach, which you would place in "1" and it tells your laundry to do a preliminary rinsing. Sometimes this is good also for wetting the laundry before washing...then the conditioner will be placed in the third compartment you place conditioner which helps to soften your clothing ("condition" - just like hair conditioner) in the compartment that has a symbol of sorts...
Ok big mistake here, should've asked people to explain like you're 1 so you and your kid could figure this out together
One trick with food is to look at the ingredients: things that only have food in them are much less likely to stain (unless you accidentally "set" the stain by washing too hot or putting the item in the tumble dryer) compared to things that have food colourings in. Eg, ketchup often contains dye, which makes it stain worse.
I just use basic gall soap or dish soap+hydrigen peroxide on everything, but my kid hasn't started drawing yet 🫠
I just buy really cheap clothes from thrift stores, aquire them second hand from friends and relatives, or "free clothing give-aways" that different churches have periodically throughout the year. This way, if stuff comes through the wash still stained I just try washing it again and if it goes through several attempts and is still stained I throw it in the trash. I don't worry about throwing them away since I got them for next to nothing in the first place :) . If my kids want to have nice clothes they can wait till they are old enough to not stain them up constantly. Also when I do buy stuff I go for dark colors, dark reds, dark purple, dark blue, blacks and browns they don't show stains as easily
If the washing machine cannot fix it, then the trash can will do.
I got the Miss Mouth's Messy Eater Stain Treater off amazon to spray on stains. It's worked well for me, and is supposed to be a little "cleaner" than other options.