The Great Laundry Experiment Results (PIC HEAVY)

[eggs4sale]

I wanted to try the homemade laundry soap on my husband's filthy jeans to see if it would get them clean. THAT would be the real test for me.

He must have known my intentions because he came home for two weeks with dirty clothes (as in DIRT) but not the typical black grease and other assorted spills.

Today, I found the pair. Sure, he's brought nome worse, but this was pretty decent.

Here's the offending pair:

Here are the before and after pictures:

Before

After

(The remaining stains here have been here through 20 washings minimum with Tide. I didn't expect them to come out!)

Before

and after

(The above Tide disclaimer holds true here, too.)

Before

After

(There is still a faint grease spot)

In their shining glory:

Overall, I'd say my homemade brew cleaned his jeans as well as Tide does. I'm definitely impressed!

I did allow an hour soak. One of these days, I'll try without the soak. Did you know that soak is a really weird word? Soak. Soak. Soak........ soak

 

[Wifezilla]

Hee hee hee


Thanks for giving us such a good test

 

[TanksHill]

Thanks for the pictures. Now this was the normal Fel's recipie? Liquid or dry? Great job!!!

 

[freemotion]

If those were not work jeans, you could just rub a bar of fels naptha on the stubborn stains and throw them in again and I bet they'd come out clean. I get oil stains on my work clothes (massage therapy) that I often only notice AFTER they come out of the dryer...a splash of water and a rub with the bar and voila! No stain!

I even got some old, old stains out of dh's work pants that I'd long given up on. He has a permanent grey stain on the right side of all his khaki work pants from putting massage oil in his right hand, little droplets build up over time. The stains are almost gone, and I just rub the bar of soap on them each time I wash the pants. Amazing.

 

[big brown horse]

Thanks! E 4 S!!

Free, thanks for the fels tip too.

 

[eggs4sale]

Thanks for the pictures. Now this was the normal Fel's recipie? Liquid or dry? Great job!!!

Liquid, normal fels-naptha recipe, though I did add a small scoop of Oxi-Clean.

My next experiment is the dry version, since my he-man 11-year-old grated the rest of the fels-naptha and it's waiting in a coffee can. I figured I could mix it with the washing soda, borax, and some salt for hard water, and toss in a little oxi-clean, too.

Freemotion, thanks for the fels trick. I'm going to try that on my clothes. I've pulled several of my shirts out of the dryer with oil stains. My mom said to put cornstarch on the spot, and run an iron over it (turned on, of course) and do that till it's good and hot, and the corn, wait. Did she say cornstarch or cornmeal? Okay, forget I mentioned anything. I'll try the fels!

 

[delia_peterson]

Which recipe did you use? I have seen alot of different ones? Thanks!

 

[noobiechickenlady]

EFS, your mom prob said cornstarch. I've used that to get out slight oil spots before, never anything major. Don't think cornmeal will soak up quite as much oil

 

[Boltstrikes]

This is very impressive. Definitely interested in the recipe.

On a laundry related note. If anyone else still uses their dryer, the lint trap seems like such a waste. The material is always so fine and soft that gets caught up in there. There has got to be a use, or recyclable to it.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Firestarters! Dryer lint & cardboard egg crates or toilet paper tubes and some old candle wax. Do a search for dryer lint on here, there are some enterprising folks.