I am a clothes hound college student that is just now learning I need to take better care of these clothes! I ALWAYS separate my colors; whites, mediums, & darks, but I was wondering should I be dividing my mediums? My medium colors consist of anything and everything that isn't navy blue, black, and dark gray. So all of my brights and bold colors with my soft peachy light grays and baby blues are washed together. Is this a bad habit? I want to keep my clothes from fading and looking like the day I bought them.

It sounds like you are the best-dressed student on campus!  Good for you for paying attention to your laundry habits—you are definitely on the right track since you are already sorting into the three main color groupings. For many people, this is enough of a challenge, but for those willing to take the time to further sort what I call the “mixed light colors” load that’s terrific! This load covers a wide range of items, including white items that can’t be bleached (like white camisoles that are a cotton/spandex blend). When these will be part of your mixed colors load, it’s a good idea to limit the other items in the load to pastels and light beige items, and wash the brighter colors in another load if you can. Red items should go into the dark load, although whenever I have enough red items on hand to wash an “only red and pink” load I’ll do just that. The hardest items to sort are the split personality shirts that have a colored body and white sleeves. For these items, initially I’ll wash them by themselves or with a dark load if they are blue or green, and once I’m confident there’s no chance of bleeding I’ll include them in a mixed colors load.

It sounds like your college experience includes housing with easy access to a clothes washer—many students need to spend as little time and money on laundry as they can, so you are lucky!

How can I get stains out of white polyester?

I don’t know if there is a specific item or stain type that you are interested in cleaning, but here are some general guidelines for using Clorox^® Regular-Bleach for stain removal on white polyester items. For a really dirty item (for example, one with ground-in dirt), you could use a bleach soaking solution to really jump start cleaning. For this, use ¼ cup bleach per gallon of water and fully submerge the item for 5 minutes. Drain the soaking solution and then wash the shirt in the hottest water recommended on the care label using detergent + ¾ cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach. Or, if you have localized stains, you could skip the bleach soak and instead pretreat the stains directly using Clorox^® Bleach Pen Gel—rub a little of the gel into the stains and then immediately wash the item in the hottest water recommended on the care label using detergent + ¾ Clorox^® Regular-Bleach. Whatever you do, though, never apply full-strength bleach to any fabric or surface! It’s also important to let items with stains you are trying to remove air dry. Depending on how long a stain has been sitting around before being laundered, it can take repeating a treatment to get a stain all the way out. Keeping an item out of a hot dryer prevents any residual stain from being heat-set, increasing your chances of eventual success

As promised, today marks part two of our DIY Fall Fashion series! Below are some instructions on how you can create your dip-dyed t-shirt. Be sure to let us know how your pair turns out in the comments section and feel free to link to a picture of your results!

Materials:

• Clorox^® Regular Bleach


• 3% hydrogen peroxide (2 quarts)


• 3 plastic dishpans (12 quart size)


• Plastic hanger


• Measuring cups


• Plastic gloves


• Old, white, full-size towels

2. In the first dishpan, add 1 1/2 cups Clorox^® Regular-Bleach to 1 gallon of water; stir with a plastic spoon.

3. In the second dishpan, pour in 2 quarts hydrogen peroxide.

4. Rinse the entire tee-shirt in plain water and squeeze excess moisture out so the shirt is slightly damp.

5. Put on your gloves and put the tee-shirt on the hanger.

6. Immerse the bottom portion of the tee-shirt (the part you want to lighten) into the bleach solution (first dishpan).

7. Keeping the tee on the hanger, lift the shirt out of the bleach solution.

8. Watch the shirt carefully—when the bottom looks lighter than the top half (and you are satisfied with the difference in color) drop the entire shirt into the peroxide to stop the bleaching action. (Note that depending on the color of the shirt, results may vary.)

9. Rinse the shirt very thoroughly in cool water in the third dishpan in the sink.

10. Squeeze excess moisture out into the towels, and air dry.

I can’t seem to keep my son’s socks clean. I use Clorox bleach, but it still doesn’t get them clean. Any ideas what else I can do?

Socks can be quite a problem (my son's socks are pretty challenging, too), and I do have some suggestions for you to try.

1. Be sure you are washing in hot water and using ¾ of a cup of Clorox^® bleach in each load.

2. Pre-soak the socks for 5 minutes in a solution of ¼ cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach diluted in 1 gallon cool water. Then wash in hot water with detergent and ¾ cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach.

3. Pre-treat the socks using Clorox^® Ultimate Care Bleach: This product is a thickened bleach product with a lower hypochlorite active level so it is safe to apply directly to bleachable fabric (something you should NEVER do with undiluted bleach!) It works exceptionally well on socks. I like to work with it in a dish pan—I lay the socks out, apply a small amount to saturate the stains, and then I transfer the treated items right into the washer from the dish pan. Then wash immediately in hot water and detergent and ¾ cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach.

I like using the dish pan because I don’t accidentally leave any spilled product around, and I can just stack the socks on top of each other as I treat them. Be sure to rinse out the dish pan when you are finished. Hopefully this will do the trick!

I washed a white sweater with blue letters with darks and now it is a dingy white. How can I get it back to a bright white without discoloring the blue letters?

Normally a bleach soaking solution (1/4 cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach bleach per gallon of water, with a soak time of up to 5 minutes) will strip away dye transfer from fabrics that can be safely bleached--note that you should always avoid bleaching wool, silk, mohair, leather, and spandex. The big challenge on your garment is the blue lettering, which is likely highly visible without any hidden areas. This makes it difficult to test to see if the blue letters could survive the bleach soak without risking a white spot if the fabric fails. Here’s the test for bleachability: Add 2 teaspoons Clorox Regular-Bleach to 1/4 cup water. Apply a drop of this solution to a hidden part of the item and wait 1 minute, then blot dry with a paper towel. No color change means the item can be safely bleached.

I put straight Clorox^® Regular-Bleach on white jeans and now I have a yellow stain.  How do I remove the bleach stain?

No matter what you are using bleach for, it should always be diluted and never used directly on a surface or fabric. Unfortunately you have first-hand experience with why we never recommend treating fabric with undiluted bleach. I wish I had better news, but instead of the yellow being a “stain” that can be removed, it is a permanent shift in the color of the white fabric (sort of the reverse of when undiluted bleach leaves a light spot on a colored item) and cannot be reversed.

Next time, be sure to wash the fabric in your washer with detergent and 3/4 cup bleach. You can also try soaking in a solution of ¼ cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach added to 1 gallon cool water for up to 5 minutes, then rinse the slacks thoroughly. Air dry and check for success

It doesn’t matter whether a crayon melted in the pocket of a sweatshirt left in the hot car or accidentally went through a hot dryer—you have quite a problem to deal with. Crayons have a waxy component that doesn't break up in a detergent and water solution--that's why these stains are such a pain. Below are some tips for getting out wax stains which should hopefully help you:

1.  Scrape away as much of the wax as possible with a dull knife.

2.  Cut open a brown paper grocery (light weight) or lunch bag. Be sure the bag does NOT have any wax coating on it!

3.  Place the bag over the wax spot, and then gently press with a dry iron on its lowest setting.  You should see dark brown splotches appear on the bag as the wax is absorbed.

4.  Reposition a fresh part of the bag over the wax spot and gently press again with the iron. Repeat until no more wax absorbs onto the bag.

5.  Finally, pretreat any remaining stain before washing.  For white items, apply Clorox^® Bleach Pen Gel directly to the stain and rub in, and then wash immediately in the hottest water recommended on the care label with detergent + ¾ cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach. For colored items (or white items that contain spandex) apply Clorox2^® Stain Fighter and Color Booster directly to the stain. Wait 5 minutes, and then wash in the hottest water recommended on the care label with detergent and more Clorox2^®.  Air dry and check for success—repeat if necessary.

A few more thoughts on wax removal:  brown paper bags are nice to work with here because it is very easy to see the wax absorb onto the bag. It’s also important to work with the iron on its lowest heat setting so you don’t melt the wax too quickly and cause it to absorb into the fabric, or melt the fabric if it is synthetic. You can check your progress and possibly increase the temperature depending on how hot your iron is--they do vary.

On Monday, I gave some tips on how to store your summer apparel to ensure they are ready to wear next Memorial Day. Today, I wanted to provide some extra tips on how to best whiten a pair of white pants or denim. After three months of use, this popular style may have started to look a bit less crisp than at the start of summer. With some quick care tips, you can change this so they are ready for next year!

First, one final wash before storage is always a good idea—be sure to pretreat any stains before washing so you don’t have surprises next spring! Start by checking the label to see if an item includes any spandex. 100% cotton items and polyester-cotton blends can be pretreated with Clorox^® Bleach Pen Gel—rub a little of the gel into the stain with the soft scrubber tip and then wash the item immediately in hot water using detergent and ¾ cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach. For white cotton and polyester-cotton blend items that also include spandex, you can pretreat stains with Clorox2^® Stain Fighter and Color Booster:  apply a little directly to the stain and rub in. Wait 5-10 minutes (set a timer—never leave full strength Clorox2^® on fabric for longer than the recommended time, and never let it dry out on fabric!) and then wash in hot water using detergent and additional Clorox2^®. Air dry any items that had stains that you pretreated. Now you are ready to pack them away!

With summer coming to a close, not only is it time to put away your summer whites, it’s also back to school season! During the next few weeks, we will feature some tips on how to best prepare for the end of summer and some of those pesky back-to-school stains. If you have any school stains you would like to see covered, be sure to leave a comment or submit the stain in the “Ask Dr. Laundry” box.

To start, I wanted to feature some tips on the best ways to store summer apparel to ensure items are fresh and ready-to-wear for the next spring/summer season!

• Be sure items are thoroughly dry when you pack them away. This is critical because any moisture trapped in clothing can allow mildew to develop during storage. Be diligent and check parts of garments that take longer to dry, like the inside hood of a sweatshirt.


• Ideally, hang items for storage in garment bags. This will protect them from collecting dust, and limit wrinkles.


• If you will be using storage bins, choose containers with tight fitting lids to keep dust out. Pack items loosely to reduce the need to steam away wrinkles next summer.


• Generally, cotton and linen fabrics (as well as silk and synthetics) are naturally resistant to moths.  You can still add a few cedar drawer liners to your garment bag or storage bin to add a nice scent to your stored clothes.

How can I remove body soils from 100% Egyptian cotton sheets? Will Clorox bleach harm the sheets by aging them faster?

It’s a common myth that bleach is hard on fabrics, and I’m happy to debunk the notion. No, laundering with Clorox^® Regular-Bleach will not cause Egyptian cotton textiles to age faster or wear out sooner. Egyptian cotton is special because its fibers are longer than most other cotton fibers, producing stronger yarns and fabrics. In general, cotton fabrics naturally deteriorate just from wearing, washing, and drying; using bleach doesn’t accelerate this effect, regardless of the length of the cotton fiber. We have examined this extensively, evaluating a wide variety of white items commonly bleached: socks, underwear, t-shirts, towels, bed sheets, dress shirts and even baseball pants. Items were washed and dried 50 times, and we found no significant difference in fabric strength between items washed with detergent and those washed in detergent and liquid bleach. It also demonstrates how to use bleach safely as directed on the label, which relates to the first question: what’s the best way to remove body soils from sheets? Assuming they are white, I recommend using the hottest water possible, and adding ¾ cup Clorox^® Regular-Bleach along with your detergent. However, if they are colored, then I would do a quick bleachability test to confirm the color is bleach fast: add 2 tsp liquid bleach to ¼ cup water, apply a drop to a hidden area (for bed sheets I like to test the hem that gets tucked in at the foot of the bed) and blot dry—no color change means the sheets can be safely bleached. If the sheets don’t pass the bleachability test, then I would add Clorox2^® Stain Fighter and Color Booster along with your detergent, and wash them in the hottest water possible.