Tag Archives: clean t-shirts

How to Brighten Your White T-Shirt?

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Over time, any white t-shirt can start looking dingy and dull. Some may even turn a shade of yellow or gray. Some end up having a brown tinge because of age. Though it is normal for this to happen over time, there is no reason to live with a dingy t-shirt. There are several ways to brighten a white t-shirt and to make it look more like it did when it was brand new, clean and white.

Bleach is the most obvious answer for brightening a white t-shirt. However, bleach is a very strong substance and can be extremely harsh on fabrics. If you want to use bleach, use it sparingly and not very often. Perhaps use a small amount of bleach in the wash every other time you wash your white t-shirt. This will brighten it up without making the fabric brittle. One way to keep the amount of bleach that you use low is to add both baking soda and bleach to the laundry. The baking soda will give the bleach a boost and allow you to use less of the bleach.

Hydrogen peroxide is another chemical that is very effective at brightening white t-shirts. You can use bottled hydrogen peroxide on your t-shirt as a presoak and then wash the t-shirt in the laundry. Hydrogen peroxide can also be mixed with a little bit of baking soda and used in a pre-treating paste for the t-shirt. This paste is spread over the t-shirt to whiten and brighten it.

Lemon juice is another inexpensive and time tested method for brightening white clothing. Lemon juice can be used as a presoak or a pre-treating liquid for the t-shirt. If you are using it is a presoak, mix lemon juice and water and let the t-shirt soak before you launder it. If you want to use it is a pre-treating solution, put lemon juice diluted with a small amount of water directly on a dull area of the t-shirt before washing just as you would with a commercial pre-treating product.

With lemon juice, you can also add it directly to your washing machine. To do this, take 1 cup of lemon juice and add it to your washing machine during the rinse cycle. This is a way to bleach your t-shirt lightly with out damaging it.

Washing soda is a substance that is known to make whites a lot whiter than most commercial laundry detergents. Washing soda is used in a washing machine just like detergent. It doesn’t need any extra detergent and it is considered safer for the environment than many laundry detergents.

Perhaps the easiest method of whitening a white t-shirt is simply to bleach it out with solar power. Sound complicated? It couldn’t be easier. It’s done by simply laying the T-shirt out in the sunlight and allowing the sun to bleach it clean. It may take a few days to get the desired effect on your t-shirt, but it’s free and it’s easy to do. Be sure to flip the t-shirt periodically so that both sides get bleached by the sun.

How to Remove Red Wine Stains From my T-Shirt

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Red wine is deeply-pigmented liquid that can easily ruin any type of clothing if the stain is not taken care of the right way. Most methods for removing red wine only work if the stain is treated soon after the spill. Once the wine sets into the fabric, or has been dried into it, it can be very difficult to get it out of a t-shirt.

Putting a t-shirt with a red wine stain on it into the washing machine without some type of pre-treatment will generally not be successful. If the spill just happened, blot the stain with anything you have available. A paper napkin, a cotton towel or even an older t-shirt that you never wear anymore will be absorbent enough to get much of the red wine out of a fresh spill. The more you can blot out of the spill, the better the outcome will be for your t-shirt.

Once you can’t blot anymore of the wine, start a pre-treatment. There are a number of commercial pretreatments on the market that can be used to soak the t-shirt in, or a pre-treatment stick or spray can put the treatment right onto the stain. To make a difference against red wine stains, the stained area will have to soak for at least several minutes to lift some of the wine out of the fabric.

If this treatment isn’t successful at lifting some of the stain out of the t-shirt, there are a few alternative treatments. The pre-treatment solution can be mixed with about a teaspoon of liquid laundry detergent and a cup of hydrogen peroxide. If you don’t have any liquid detergent on hand, liquid dish soap will work just as well. Mix these items together and soak the affected area of the t-shirt in it for at least 10 minutes. If the t-shirt is a bright color, you might try a color test with the hydrogen peroxide before soaking the shirt. This can be done my applying a small dot of the peroxide to a small portion of the t-shirt to make sure that the chemical will not strip the intended color out of the t-shirt.

Once the treatment has soaked into the fabric for the required amount of time, rinse the area thoroughly with cold water. If the stain doesn’t seem to be lifting, let the t-shirt soak in very cold water for about 10 minutes. This will likely remove some of the wine if the stain isn’t too old.

For an older stain on a light-colored t-shirt, using regular laundry bleach should get the wine stain out of the t-shirt. This works well on a white t-shirt, but a light colored shirt that isn’t white may still have a noticeable mark, though it will be less noticeable than the wine stain would have been. To apply the bleach, use a laundry bleach pen or use a cotton swab to dab a little bleach onto the wine-stained area. After a few minutes, rinse it away with cold water and wash the t-shirt in the washing machine.

Baking soda

How to Soften and Whiten Laundry by Using Baking Soda

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Baking sodaBaking soda is an inexpensive substance that is easy to find in any grocery store and general merchandise store. It has a million uses in the home, but one of the most useful of these is likely its power to soften clothing and make white clothes whiter. If a home has hard water, baking soda is especially helpful in keeping clothing from becoming stiff from the hard water residue.

Baking soda is a mildly alkali substance, making it a perfect natural detergent. It doesn’t come with any harsh chemicals like artificial fragrances and it is generally safe to be used by people with sensitive skin. There are several ways that baking soda can be used in the washing machine to make clothing softer and to whiten whites.

One of the easiest methods of using baking soda to keep clothing softer and brighter is to add about half a cup of baking soda during the rinse cycle. This works in much the same way that a liquid fabric softener would work in the wash.

Another way to use baking soda is to use it as a part of the detergent. This is done in order to brighten clothes and keep the whites looking whiter. This can be done by simply substituting a cup of baking soda for the detergent you would usually use. This can also be done by using baking soda as a part of a homemade detergent. By mixing a ¼ cup of baking soda with ½ cup of white vinegar, you can make an effective washing liquid that will treat most stains but will leave clothes softer than if a regular detergent is used.

A pre-treat solution can also be used for whites that will keep them brighter. Mix ½ cup of white vinegar with ½ cup of ammonia and ¼ cup of baking soda. Mix in about two quarts of water and two spoonfuls of regular liquid hand soap and you will have an extremely effective pre-treat solution that can be used for treating whites before they are washed. To use this, the solution can be sprayed onto the clothing stains and left to soak for about 10 minutes before washing. Or, the clothing can be rinsed in the solution before being rinsed with water and placed into the wash. This will work to keep white clothes brighter than if they

If you are using bleach to whiten whites, it can make clothing somewhat stiffer than regular detergent. To counteract this effect, add a little baking soda into the bleach to keep the clothing softer. This will also give the bleach a little boost and will result in even whiter whites.

To work on tough stains on whites, scrub the area with baking soda. To do this, make a paste from the baking soda a little bit of water. Take the paste and scrub it into the stain with a small scrub brush or an old toothbrush. Avoid scrubbing too hard, however, or you may scrub a hole into the fabric. Once this is completed, wash the clothing as usual.

Ballpoint pen

How to Remove Ballpoint Pen Ink From Your T-Shirt

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Ballpoint pen

Using a ballpoint pen is an integrated part of everyone’s daily life. However, using a ballpoint regularly means that eventually some of the ink from that pen will make it onto the clothing that you wear. When this occurs, there are several way that the ink can be taken out of the fabric in order for a cleaner, more attractive article of clothing.

Because t-shirts are made from cotton, the ink is easily absorbed into the t-shirt. But, cotton is also easy to wash and it’s possible to get just about any stain out of it. Ballpoint pen ink is generally fairly easy to wash out of a garment. If you want to get the ink out quickly and easily, try washing it along with the other laundry as usual. Use a fast washing speed to make sure to get out as much ink as possible.

After the washing machine cycle is over, take out the t-shirt and check it thoroughly. If there are still any signs of the ink on the t-shirt, either wash it again or find another method to get rid of the ballpoint ink. Don’t put it into a dryer yet, as this will set the remaining ink into the fabric and make it much more difficult to wash the ink out.

Try to remove the ink by hand if the washing machine isn’t effective. This can by done by putting the ink-stained portion of the t-shirt under hot water and letting the water run through the stain for a few minutes. This should loosen up the remaining ink from the fabric. If it doesn’t, try rubbing the ink-stained area back and forth against itself while holding it under the running hot water. After a minute or two, the ink should have disappeared.

Sometimes using some type of soap can help the stain to come out of the fabric faster. You might try a little bit of liquid laundry detergent while using this rubbing method. Liquid hand soap or liquid dishwashing detergent has also been known to help with this type of ink stain.

If the ink stain is older and you’re still having trouble getting it out, try spraying a little hairspray on the stain. Let het hairspray sit on the stain for a few minutes and then try the rubbing method to get it out of the t-shirt. Then, just wash the t-shirt as you normally would in order to get the hairspray out of the fabric.

With a white t-shirt, using a little bit of nail polish remover can also be effective. It is a strong substance, however, and it can stain even a white t-shirt if too much is used. If the ink stain is on a white shirt, using a small amount of bleach from a bleach pen should take out any ink that has remained from the other methods. A bleach pen lets you to apply bleach with precision and to avoid having to wash the entire garment with it.

How to Salvage Smoke Damaged T-Shirts and Clothing

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There are many items that simply can’t be saved from smoke damage. Luckily, t-shirts clothing doesn’t have to be one of them. Depending on the degree of smoke damage to an item of clothing, it may be able to be salvaged by giving it some special care.

The first thing to do is to figure out which items of clothing can be salvaged and which ones can’t. There may be a few pieces that are so heavily damaged that no amount of care can save them. If the entire garment is covered in soot and it’s difficult to tell what the item originally looked like, it may be too late to save that particular garment.

Clothing that has light smoke damage may benefit from a spray with a fabric odor spray. These are often made with cornstarch and lift odors out of the fabric and allow them to evaporate along with the liquid in the spray. Try spraying lightly-damaged items and then washing them with a color-safe bleach to remove the odor of smoke.

Some clothing may have a little more smoke damage but may just need a vigorous washing in hot water to make it look the way it did before. A garment that has a strong smoky smell but that doesn’t have a lot of soot on it may be salvaged by washing the item on the fastest washing cycle in hot water. Use a heavy-duty detergent and use a pre-treatment soak before putting it into the laundry.

For items that are in worse condition, try pre-treating the item for a longer period of time and then rinsing the items several times before washing them. It may be necessary to wash these items three or four times to remove the soot and the smell of smoke from them. To help the smell come out of the clothing more easily, add a half a cup of baking soda in with the washing detergent. This will help to absorb some of the smell and to wash it away. Don’t dry the clothing until you’ve gotten out all of the soot that you can.

Chlorine bleach is helpful for whites that have smoke damage. This is an effective way to get both the smell of smoke and the residue of it out of white clothing. Soak the items in bleach in the bathtub or in a sink. After a few minutes, rinse the bleach from the garments and make sure that most of the soot has been rinsed away. After this step, the items can be put into a washing machine with a little more bleach added to the load if needed.

If the clothing has severe damage to it but you want to try to salvage it, try a fire restoration service. These services specialize in restoring smoke and fire damaged items to their best possible condition. There are also some dry cleaners that can provide smoke-damage care to clothing. There is an ozone treatment process that can get small particles of smoke out of clothing without damaging the fibers. Call local dry cleaners and find one that can provide this treatment.

How To Remove Tomato Stains From Your T-Shirt

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Stains are one of the most annoying things to deal with when it comes to T-shirt care. Often we find that a perfectly nice white or light colored T-shirt can be ruined by things like tomato stains. So many different dishes are tomato based and therefore it is a very common stain. Luckily T-shirts can usually withstand heavy duty stain fighting, so you can get rid of almost any stain, even the pesky tomato stain.

First and foremost, try to treat the stain as soon as it happens or as soon as possible after you notice it. Remove any excess tomato on your tee by scooping it off with a spoon or gently scraping it with a knife.  Flush the area with cold water from the back of the stain to force as much of it out of the fabric as possible. Timeliness in getting started on removing the stain is the biggest factor in how successful you will be with stain removal.

When as much of the stain is out as possible, it is time to get serious. You should apply liquid laundry detergent to the stain and gently work it in from the outside inward. If you have a T-shirt that can be safely bleached you can add a touch of bleach to the stain also. If you want to avoid using something this harsh, applying lemon juice, white vinegar or hydrogen peroxide to the stain can also have a bleaching effect. Continue rubbing the stain alternating the use of laundry detergent with the bleach until the stain is gone. Rinse the T-shirt well and check it in good light to make sure all traces of the tomato stain are truly gone. Apply a commercially produced stain treatment and let sit for 5 minutes, before laundering as usual.

After your T-shirt is washed double check it to be sure that the stain is out. Once it dries in the dryer, it is most likely set for life. Therefore it is important to check clothing as it comes out of the washer to minimize the possibility of permanent stains. If you catch it before it hits the dryer and the stain is still visible treat it by rubbing more laundry detergent into the stain and soaking it in warm water for no less than a half-hour.  Rinse, then apply stain remover and wash your T-shirt in the washing machine again.

If after all these steps, you find that you are left with a stained T-shirt, you do have options. Have a new T-shirt custom-made to replace the one you have stained. You can recreate your old T-shirt exactly by having one customized to your own design. You can opt for a more tomato-friendly color like black. You can also make fun of tomato stains, by having a tee made that says “Official Tomato Eating T-shirt” or Official Spaghetti Shirt”. By doing so you can get away with any tomato stains that may come your way.

Get your custom-made tomato stain T-shirt today and show that you can creatively deal with any stains.

How to Remove Blood Out of a White T-Shirt?

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Blood is one of the hardest stains to get out of clothing. Because of its deep red color and its relative thickness, a blood stain is harder to get out than most simple food stains. Blood will ruin a white t-shirt, even if the blood stain is small. For that reason, saving the t-shirt means getting rid of the stain.

To get rid of a stain quickly and without damaging the t-shirt, the blood stain has to be treated immediately. Once blood has touched the t-shirt, every second counts if you want the blood to come out completely. If it’s at all possible, take the t-shirt off immediately. If you can’t take the t-shirt off, you can hold the stained portion away from the rest of the t-shirt so that the stain will not spread.

Run cold water through the shirt at the point of the blood stain. This is far easier if the t-shirt has been removed. If it hasn’t, hold the stained area under the tap as best you can. Continue running the water through the fabric for a minute or two. If the blood has been on the fabric for a few minutes, you will have to run the cold water through the fabric for several minutes. Rub the fabric together under the running water to help the blood dissipate if it seems to be lingering on the shirt.

If the stain is fresh, this should get most if not all of the blood out of a white t-shirt. If there is still a light residue left over, fill a sink or a tub full of cold water and let the t-shirt soak in the water for at least an hour. Then, drain the water and run the t-shirt through fresh, cold water for another minute. This should loosen the remaining blood from the shirt.

If the stain is older, it can still be removed from the t-shirt, though it may take more time. If the blood is dried or the t-shirt has already been washed, the stain will not respond well to cold water. The blood stain will probably need to be bleached out of the fabric. This must be done very carefully, however, because bleach will drain the color out of any clothes it comes into contact with- including what you’re wearing. It can also damage clothing and cause holes in the fabric if too much of it is used.

Pour a small amount of bleach into the cap from the bleach bottle. Then, dip a cotton swab into the bleach and apply it to the blood stain. If the stain is very large, place the t-shirt flat on a hard surface and pour the bleach from the cap onto the stain. Let the bleach sit for at least 10 minutes to break up the color. When this is finished, put the t-shirt directly into the washer by itself or with other white items and wash the bleach from the fabric. This will result in the least damage to the shirt.

How To Get Toothpaste Off My T-Shirt

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There are many horrible stains that can be very pesky to deal with on your favorite T-shirt. Luckily, toothpaste is not one of them. It is in fact one of the easier stains to remove. Generally, you can just throw the shirt into the washing machine and it will come out clean. The key is, as with all stains, to not let it set in, especially if it is a colored gel or whitening toothpaste.

In fact regular white toothpaste, not the gel kind, is recommended to use as a stain remover for certain kinds of oily makeup stains, fresh marker stains, crayon stains and more. In fact plain, cheap toothpaste is a multi-purpose stain remover for white T-shirts with stains of all kinds. If you are wearing a white T-shirt and happen to get a colored stain on it, many tipsters recommend covering up the stain with plain white toothpaste to help you get through the day if you can’t deal with the stain right away. In addition to T-shirts, toothpaste is also suggested for cleaning carpet, shoes and more.

However, if you happen to get a glob of toothpaste on your T-shirt, it is in your best interest to scrape off the excess immediately and soak the T-shirt. This is especially true for dark T-shirts which have received a whitening toothpaste glob. Whitening toothpaste contains bleach and therefore can leave bleach marks on dark shirts, ruining the shirt irreparably. For this reason, getting to the stain as soon as possible is very important.

If you are getting ready for work and happen to get toothpaste splatters on your dark-colored T-shirt as you are brushing your teeth, you can attempt to get them out with a wet cloth. This sometimes works if the splatter is still wet. However, toothpaste really does need to be washed out with lots of soap and water typically. Therefore, your best bet, especially if you are crunched for time is to throw the T-shirt in soak and get another one.

If you are unlucky enough to not catch those whitening toothpaste stains in time and you end up with a spotty shirt, you can always choose to dye it or put it in the stock of clothes you use around the house when cleaning. Bleach of any kind is the worst thing that can meet your clothes.

Custom-made T-shirts are great for those sloppy tooth brushers. You can get a T-shirt made that pokes fun at your clumsiness or that talks about the benefits of toothpaste stain removal. Some fun options to print on a T-shirt include:
•    Official Tooth Brushing Shirt
•    Step 1: Clean Teeth, Step 2: Remove T-shirt with toothpaste splatters
•    I hate toothpaste splatters
•    Toothpaste stains suck
•    New markers for 2 year old – $3, White toothpaste to remove marker stains from sofa and carpet – $2, Saving 2 year old’s derriere – Priceless

Get a fun custom-made T-shirt and show off your feelings about toothpaste and stains today.