My puppy came down with parvo. Can I use Clorox® on pine wood floors?

Regarding your wood floor, as long as it has a finish (in good condition) on it that effectively makes it a hard non-porous surface, a singular bleach treatment should be OK.  Even so, you should still test a small, less visible section first so you will know what to expect from the treatment.  Our EPA-registered protocol to kill canine parvovirus on hard non-porous surfaces is as follows: prepare a disinfecting solution of ¾ cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach and 1 gallon water.  Pre-wash the areas, then mop or wipe with the disinfecting solution.   Let stand for 10 minutes, then rinse thoroughly and air dry.  Consider working in small sections to be sure you can manage rinsing quickly and efficiently, and be sure the room is well ventilated.  You should also wear eye protection and gloves because you will be working with the bleach solution for a prolonged period of time.

How do I remove color bleeding during laundering?

Most garments that are new bleed a little, but usually they do stop after a few cycles, so washing newer items alone or only with like colors is a pretty effective strategy for limiting dye transfer.  To restore items that have picked up fugitive color during the wash cycle, you can often do this with a bleach soaking solution as long as the items are safely bleachable.  First, check the care labels and don’t use the soaking solution if the item contains wool, silk, mohair, spandex, and leather--these should never be bleached.  Also, you didn’t say if your items are white or another color (or combination of colors), so you may need to check for colorfastness to bleach with this simple bleachability test:  dilute 2 teaspoons Clorox® Regular-Bleach in ¼ cup water; apply a drop of this solution to a hidden part of the each item (like a hem, cuff, collar, or inside seam); wait 1 minute then blot dry; no color change means the item can be safely bleached.

For items that are not on the “avoid bleaching” list and pass the bleachablility test, you can try a bleach soak:  fully submerge the item in a solution of ¼ cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach diluted in 1 gallon cool water for up to 5 minutes, then rinse thoroughly.  Air dry the item, and check for success (it’s important to keep the item out of the dryer so the heat doesn’t set any remaining dye).  Hopefully the fugitive color will be gone, but if it is lighter, then repeat the bleach soak again.  However, if the bleach soak leaves the dye transfer color unchanged you may need to try RIT Color Remover, which can usually be found at drug and hardware stores.  A dilute RIT solution works best to limit stripping off the original color of an item in addition to the fugitive dye, so be careful.

Q. What will remove cooking oil from a t-shirt?

A. I would start by pretreating the stain with something to help solubilize the cooking oil, breaking it up to make it easier to remove.  Try liquid Clorox2® Stain Fighter and Color Booster or liquid dishwashing detergent.  Apply a little and rub it into the stain, and wait 10 minutes (but don't let it sit too long or dry out on the fabric).  How you proceed next depends on the item.  Here are some options for different color types and fabric:

If the t-shirt is white and bleachable (avoid bleaching wool, silk, mohair, leather, and spandex) then wash it in the hottest water recommended on the care label using detergent and 3/4 cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach.  Air dry and check for success – hopefully the stain will be gone. If a little remains you can repeat the treatment with a decent chance of eventual success; if the t-shirt has been kept out of a hot dryer.

If the t-shirt is colored, then wash in the hottest water recommended on the care label using detergent and more Clorox2®.  Again, be sure to air dry the shirt and then check for success, and repeat the treatment if necessary.

Q:  How can I get gum out of a leather sofa?

A:  The most effective way to remove gum from just about anything is to use ice cubes to freeze the gum, and then gently scrape away the hardened chunks with a dull knife.  Just put the ice directly onto the gum.  As you are waiting for the gum to harden, the ice will melt as you hold it there so plan on using multiple ice cubes.  It would also be good to hold a towel nearby to absorb water that collects or drips away.  Be sure to freeze the gum long enough, so you don’t scratch your sofa!  When it’s thoroughly frozen, the gum will scrape away easily.

Q:  Is there one product that will get everything white, instead of using multiple products?

A:  While I wish we had one product that could do it all, a typical load of laundry isn't always "one size fits all" in determining the best way to wash each item in the load.  White cotton kitchen towels?  Wash them with Clorox® Regular-Bleach and not only are they cleaner and whiter, they are disinfected.  Sounds good so far, but that white camisole:  can you throw it in with the bleach load, too?  Not so fast! Check the care label because it probably has a small percentage of spandex in addition to the cotton. And, unfortunately, spandex cannot be bleached.  For that matter, neither can wool, silk, mohair, and leather.  Clorox2® Stain Fighter and Color Booster is a great product for whitening items that can't be bleached, plus it also improves cleaning and brightens colors compared to washing with detergent alone.  And it can also be used as a pre-treatment! 

But now you have two additives in addition to your detergent...and as long as textiles are made from a variety of fibers and people continue to get their clothes dirty, counting on one product to do it all simply won't provide the best results.  For people who like to keep it simple, starting with a really good detergent and having Clorox® Regular-Bleach and Clorox2® on hand is a good approach.

Do you like to keep it simple with only a few laundry products? Or do you like to have every laundry tool possible in your arsenal?

Q:  Many of my white button-down shirts within time tend to turn slightly off-white, yellowish.  I've tried washing with bleach but it doesn't help.  What should I do?

A:  This is a question I get a lot, and it deserves a long answer.  I wish I knew a little more about your wash habits.  Since your whites have yellowed over time that could indicate a long term cleaning issue.  Here are some factors that affect cleaning and whitening that you may be able to change and see better results.

1. Detergent choice—Make sure you are using a good detergent that contains brighteners and enzymes in addition to surfactants and builders.  Review the ingredient list—better detergents often list the purpose of the ingredients.  Plus, the better the detergent, the better the improvement in performance when you add bleach.


2. Use the correct amount of detergent—Under using detergent will result in poor performance, especially if you wash heavily soiled items or extra-large loads, or if you have hard water. That’s when you actually need to add extra!


3. Choose a “hot” wash temperature—The higher the wash temperature, the better the cleaning.


4. Don’t overload the washer—Clothes need to circulate/tumble freely through the wash water for optimum cleaning.


5. Use the correct amount of bleach—That’s ¾ cup for a regular load, and 1 ¼ cup for an extra-large or heavily soiled load.  Perhaps your clothes washer has a bleach dispenser that limits the amount of bleach you can add to 1/3 cup.  In that case, you can experiment with smaller loads, and fill the dispenser to the “max fill” line.

It’s important to note that there are also a few situations when using Clorox® Regular-Bleach can cause whites to yellow:

• Fabric not safe for bleach—You should never bleach garments made with wool, silk, mohair, leather, and spandex. They are damaged by exposure to bleach, which can include yellowing as well as fiber deterioration.


• The fabric finish yellows—Sometimes a finish applied to the fabric/garment will react with bleach and turn yellow.  Hopefully these garments are labeled "non-chlorine bleach only".


• Concentrated bleach exposure—If cotton is exposed to undiluted or extremely concentrated bleach solutions, it can yellow.


• Poor water quality—When the household water supply contains large amounts of metals (like iron and manganese), they react with the sodium hypochlorite active in bleach to form colored materials that can deposit onto clothes.  The best way to handle this problem is to install a water treatment/filtration system to remove the impurities.

Since your shirts have yellowed over time, there’s a good chance you can whiten up the shirts again (as long as the yellowing wasn’t caused by metals).  Here are some techniques you could try:

1. Soak the items in a solution of ¼ cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach per gallon of water.  Fully submerge for 5 minutes, then wash in hot water using detergent + ¾ cup bleach (or fill the dispenser to the max-fill line).  This is ideal for dingy yellow build-up from poor cleaning over time.


2. Overnight pre-soak with powdered Clorox2® Stain Fighter and Color Booster. Add 1 scoop Clorox2® to 2 gallons hot water, and stir to be sure the product dissolves.  Fully submerge the items for 8 hours or overnight.  Rinse the soaking solution, and then wash in hot water using detergent and additional Clorox2®.  This is ideal for white shirts that contain a small amount of spandex, which should never be washed with Clorox® Regular-Bleach.

Keeping whites their best can require a bit of work, but definitely pays off!  It’s always good to prevent yellowing in the first place, but hopefully these tips do the trick.

Q:  I just washed a new red and white striped coverlet I had custom made. I tried to prevent the red from bleeding on the white by putting two Shout® Color Catchers® in the cold wash. Well, I still had some bleeding on the white stripes! How can I get this off? And in the future, how should I wash this product? The coverlet is made out of 300ct cotton sheets that have been sewn together and I did not dry it once I saw what happened.

A:  What an unfortunate situation, but good for you for not tumble drying the coverlet.  You have a much better chance of restoring it since you didn’t heat-set the dye transfer.  

Start by figuring out if the red portion of the coverlet is safely bleachable (even if the original sheet was labeled "only non-chlorine bleach").  You can check for colorfastness to bleach with this simple bleachability test: dilute 2 teaspoons Clorox® Regular-Bleach in ¼ cup water; apply a drop of this solution to a hidden or less visible part of the coverlet (or maybe you have fabric scraps to test); wait 1 minute then blot dry; no color change means the item can be safely bleached.  It’s hard to know if the red will pass—many colored bedding items do, but red is notorious for being a problem, and you won’t know until you try. 

Let’s say it passes—in that case, soak the coverlet in a solution of ¼ cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach diluted in 1 gallon cool water for up to 5 minutes, then rinse thoroughly.  Air dry, and check for success.  Hopefully the fugitive color will be gone, but if the bleach soak leaves the dye transfer color unchanged, (or if you determined that the red fabric could not be bleached) then you may need to try RITÒ Color Remover, which can usually be found at drug and hardware stores.  Since you don’t want to strip the red color, you may want to try a weak dilution first to see if that does the trick.

You were also wondering about future care of the coverlet.  If you have any fabric left over from the construction of the coverlet you can determine the extent of the bleeding problem by soaking fabric scraps in a warm water + detergent solution.  If the fabric only bleeds one time when you do this, then it could be that excess dye is now off the fabric and you won’t see bleeding in the future. But if it’s not, and the red fabric takes a few more washes to get the excess dye off, you could do a series of warm water washes with detergent to try to get all the dye off the fabric, and then do one final restoration step.  You could also see if bleeding is minimized in cold water, and then only wash in cold water in the future.  If the nightmare persists, and you decide to make another one, try some of the bleach friendly sheets that are now available.

Has anyone else had this frustrating problem happen to them?

Q:  Are there any health/fire/safety risks associated with adding bleach to the rinse cycle (when already used in the wash cycle) to whiten dingy cleaning rags?

A:  Thanks for sending in your question — it’s a very interesting one!  There’s no fire risk with Clorox® Regular-Bleach.  From the product’s Material Safety Data Sheet, Fire and Explosion Data is as follows:

• Flash Point: None


• Special Firefighting Procedures: None


• Unusual Fire/Explosion Hazards: None. Not flammable or explosive. Product does not ignite when exposed to open flame.

Health risks associated with adding bleach to the final rinse cycle would be limited to potential skin sensitivity of people who use the rags in the future, and that would vary between individuals.  The biggest issue (and the best reason to not add bleach to the final rinse cycle) is residual bleach left behind in the washer that could carry over to the next wash load, meaning you could get bleach spots on items not safe for bleach! 

Adding an extra rinse cycle would eliminate the “bleach residue” problem, but I would recommend using a combined bleach pre-soak and bleach + detergent wash instead.  Start by rinsing the rags, and then soaking them for 5 minutes in a bleach solution of ¼ cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach per gallon of warm water.  Drain the soaking solution and then wash the rags in hot water using a good powdered detergent + ¾ cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach.

Q:  My Clorox® Regular-Bleach has lost its odor, what is the shelf life of bleach?

A:  It’s important to keep track of how old your bleach is because yes, bleach doesn’t last forever!  When Clorox® Regular-Bleach is stored between 50°F and 70F° and away from sunlight, it will maintain label strength of the sodium hypochlorite active for up to 6 months (at this point hospitals should replace it).  After 6 months it starts breaking down into salt and water, but will still perform well for home consumer cleaning needs for up to a year.  Since it’s always diluted before use, you can just use a little more.  Beyond a year, it should be replaced because the rate of decomposition into salt and water really speeds up, a big part of why it’s so environmentally friendly.

The best way to identify the age of a bottle (people don’t always remember when they bought it!) is to use the production code stamped on the neck of the bottle, which typically looks like this:

A8116010

5813-CA3

The information on when the bleach was made is in the top line, which would be A8-1-160-10 if you added dashes.  You only need the first 6 digits and you read it from left to right as follows:

Plant Number—Last digit of year made—Day of the year made

         A8                              1                                   160

The bleach in this example was made in 2011 on June 9th, the 160th day of the year.

Readers – have you checked the date of your bleach recently?

Q:  Is it safe to use Clorox® Regular-Bleach on finished hardwood floors?

A:  Generally, Clorox® Regular-Bleach is suitable for disinfecting floors made of hard surfaces like ceramic tile, vinyl, and linoleum—not marble or other porous surfaces that aren’t safe for bleach.  Wood is porous, and generally we only recommend bleaching exterior finished wood surfaces, not interior hardwood floors.   Finish composition, quality, and the age of the floor vary from home to home making a general positive recommendation difficult to give.  Depending on your situation, a one-time only bleach treatment might be OK.  You would need to test a less-visible section of the floor first so you know how the treatment will affect the floor.

Another important clarification is that Clorox® Regular-Bleach should always be diluted when used; we never recommend using it full strength for cleaning any hard surface or fabric!  Here’s how you properly dilute it for disinfecting floors that are safe for bleach:

• Mix up a solution of ¾ cup bleach added to 1 gallon of water


• Wipe or wash the floor, and then apply the bleach solution, letting it stand for 5 minutes


• Rinse well and air dry

If you test a small section of the floor first and decide you can safely proceed, then a good technique is to work in smaller sections to be sure you can manage rinsing quickly and efficiently.  Be sure the area is well ventilated while you are working.  Also, keeping kids or pets away from the area you are working in is also a good idea until the “air dry” step is complete.  

Do any of my readers have need to bleach their hardwood floors?  I’d be curious to know the reasons why.