Frugal Friday--Removal of Stains

Its Friday, time again for Frugal Friday over at Crystal's blog--Biblical Womanhood!

Crystal is asking for some help in getting clothes stain free. So I am going to share a few ways to keep clothes--stain free(or at least almost! LOL)

Ever been in the situation where you are emptying clothes out the dryer only to find bright pink marks ALL over them?? Only to find that it was a crayon that you had missed in a pocket of your daughter's pants! I have been there and I was able to remove every spot of pink from the clothes, including hubby's good white shirt!

Crayon–washed and dried removal:

1. Take off as much wax as possible.

2. Take liquid Wisk(I have had the best success with Wisk over other brands!) and Peanut Butter and smear over the crayon spots.

3. Use NO Bleach!! including liquid Wisk with bleach.

4. Rinse clothes and then wash and dry clothes again.

**Crayola has stain tips guide on their website but I have found my way to actually work better!**


I have used this next solution on many clothes, esp. those clothes that I have gotten as hand-me-downs that have had stains set in them. It is also great for those baby formula stains (even those stains that have been set in), those crayon marks that you find on clothes before you dry them, it has even worked on tempera paint removal from clothes(doesn't get all of it but makes the clothes look good enough for play clothes where you don't have to dump them in the trash). I have used on many stains(food, grass, and set in stain) and have great to good results with it. **This is good for colored clothes as well...use with caution–some colored clothes are not color-fast and colors will fade from bleach.**


“Magic Solution”

½ cup automatic dishwasher soap to ½ cup bleach mixed into 2 gallons of water.

Put soap in with as hot of water as possible. Stop running water pour bleach into water, stir in completely. Then place clothes in solution. Let soak. (You can do this right in your top load washer! I usually do it in my big white laundry tub or in the bathtub as I have a front loader washer.)

You can see that the measurements are such where you can do a smaller amount or a bigger amount with not much thinking.

Ink or Permanent Marker Stains(in clothes or carpet!):

Good old pump(not aerosol) hairspray!!

spray the hairspray and a dry cloth rag(that you can throw away cause the ink will go into the rag!). Don't use paper towels as they will just shred. Spray the spots let sit for about 20 seconds for the hairspray to start working and then blot out the ink from the carpet or clothes. Repeat til the spots are gone.

The trick is to not let the hair spray sit too long as it can have the opposite effect and set the ink into the carpet or clothes for that matter.

If you are getting ink/marker out of the carpet--Use some carpet cleaner to get the sticky film from the hairspray out of the carpet.

For clothes, I wash them immediately in a wash load after having treated the ink/marker.


Grease spots(even washed and dried spots!)

Just use either Dawn or Palmolive handwashing dish soap right on the stain. Let it set for about 5 minutes and then wash as usual in a wash load.

Tomato/Ketchup Stains

These are a little hard to remove if you don't take cold water to the fresh spots! However, they can and will come out with soaking in cold water and then spot treating with Dawn or Palmolive handwashing dish soap. Then wash as usual in a wash load. Check the item BEFORE you put it in the dryer because it might need another round.

Deodorant Stains

Sherry asked about these in a comment below so I thought I would edit my post to include them as well! Thanks Sherry for the question! For getting out deodorant stains, I have found that soaking the stain in hydrogen peroxide for 5 minutes right before washing is best. Then rinsing out the peroxide and then rubbing Felsnaptha soap or Era laundry soap on the stains and washing as usual in a wash load. Deodorant stains are hard to get out especially if they are old and set in but I have done several of hubby's white shirts with repeating the process several times.

I have also had very good success with soaking in Oxy Clean for colors and whites with just about any kind of stain!

There is alot more frugal tips over at Biblical Womanhood!

Originally posted in February, 2008