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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

White Bar Soap ~ Your new best friend ~ Stains worst enemy!

*for the stain fighting tip, scroll down*

So as you may know, Babies make Lots and Lots of Messes! I mean LOTS. My little darling Ava blew out of more diapers than I knew what to do. I switched and switched brands... It must be her petite frame because no matter what brand I used, we had blow outs! I am just glad we were blessed to have had enough clothes to last her roughly 3 clothes changes a day for a week! (maybe it wasn't that bad... but it sure seemed like it at times!)  For those of you that went the cloth diaper route, Kudos to you!

My daughter was always a mover in my womb. I asked my OBGYN what that meant.. He said, "It means you are in for some trouble! You will have your arms full"!  And Boy was he ever right! Though, I didn't expect Ava to be like the equivalent of having twins! She has one of the strongest personalities I have ever seen a baby have. She lets you know when she is not happy and fast! Ava was born a mover and she hasn't stopped. This little girl is ready to take on the world and needs lots of stimulation and is easily bored. She has kept my arms full and has had me on my feet either giving her a new point of view to keep her from becoming bored or I was chasing her around the house! She definitely has had momma all to herself! I was lucky if I could even get the dishes done the first 6 months of her life! So I couldn't even fathom what my life would be like if I had gone the cloth diaper route... I'm very very thankful for disposable diapers!

So with Ava's personality, I didn't have time every day to scrub her laundry every time she freshly stained her clothing. I had to strategically plan out our laundry situation. So, a couple evenings out of the week Mick would watch Ava while I ran around doing laundry.

I had two piles of dirty laundry for Ava. A "really soiled pile" and a "dirty pile". The "really soiled" contained the blow-outs and spit ups and the other, "dirty" pile, was regular worn laundry. So once a week I would gather her "really soiled" laundry, bring it to the bathroom and scrub it with the stain remover and hot water to take out the stains.


A mother I know raved over the Dreft Stain Remover. She said she couldn't live with out the stuff. That it was a life saver and it made her daughters clothes last. So I bought the $4.00+ bottle and thought I was on my way. Little did I know I was going to break out in a sweat and that this was going to take me all evening just to remove a stain for 1 onesie!!! ON top of that, I was thinking with all the scrubbing I was doing, This brand new onesie was going to look old and worn out before I knew it. The stuff tells you to spray the soiled area, let it sit for 5 minutes, agitate and rinse in hot water... I found myself repeating this 2 or 3x even on freshly stained/soiled clothing! ...



So, after slaving over the tub, I thought of an age old trick my mom taught me back in the day for taking stains out of clothes...

 A simple bar of White Soap...

 It has to be a Bar of White Soap
like Ivory or Dial White bar Soap.


 (Stained with Sweet potato baby food, just for this demo... yummm)

Wet both the bar of White Soap and the stained clothing in 
as hot/warm of water as you can handle comfortably...

Apply the bar of soap liberally to the stain. 


Agitate the stain well using your hand, a soft or medium toothbrush (love this) or the clothing itself until the stain looks like it's about gone. Once I get it started I sometimes finish agitating it under,  
as hot/warm of water you can handle comfortably...
then use as Hot/warm of water you can handle comfortably 
to rinse out all of the soap and the stain residue. 



(Before i could snap the picture, the stain had rinsed itself out!)

That's it!

(Believe it or not, this is the same onesie that I just rinsed looking fresh and new!)


I barely ever found myself repeating this step. 
If you need to, repeat as needed until stain is completely gone. 

 It was as if the stain melted away! It had been sooo long since I used this age old method my mom taught me that I couldn't believe it when I first did this! The couple day old, blow-out-stains came right out of the onesie in LESS than a minute! Same was true for the fresh stains too! I was able to get a weeks worth of stained baby clothing completely flawless in just 5 minutes or less!


3 bars of Dial White bar soap cost me $2.88 at the grocery store. Under a dollar a bar! One bar lasts me Forever as long as my husband doesn't steal it to shower with!  ;)  The Dreft Stain Remover only would have lasted me maybe a handful of loads if I continued to use it.

So once I was done "un-staining" the once stained clothes, I'd combine the two piles in the wash and washed it like I normally would do with a regular load and with the regular clothes detergent I use for Ava's baby clothes.
(If you are wondering, I use, "All Free and Clear" laundry detergent and "All Free and Clear" dryer sheets. It's inexpensive and it keeps the clothes clean and I have never had a problem on Ava's sensitive skin)


I hope you are able to use this helpful tip for just about any stain on clothes. 
               (Onesie Post Stain. Looking fresh and new)
*** Here is a tip if you are dealing with BLOOD STAINED clothes ***
... Use ICE COLD WATER when handling and rinsing the blood stains. Not all blood stains come out well with the white soap but the tip is, the Sooner you tackle the stain, the quicker and more thoroughly the stain is removed.  Hot Water will SET the stain... NEVER use HOT WATER on BLOOD STAINS!

2 comments:

  1. for blood you can also try some peroxide. And for tough food stains even after they have been washed, spot clean with a dab of dish soap (since its a degreaser) I just rub it for a minute and was as usual.

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