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Monday, March 2, 2009

Laundry Incident Happy Ending

WARNING: Entire post on stain removal follows.
I would stick to more exciting topics, like,
What I Made For Lunch!, or, Grammar!, but I'm feeling guilt over the sympathy that keeps pouring in over my last post, in which I officially aired my dirty laundry on my blog (Thank you! You felt my pain!), since the problem has been resolved.

Thank you, The Internets. I adapted some advice I found online and it actually worked. I mixed up 2 cups of Tide®, a cup of OxiClean®, a cup of Spray 'n Wash®, and some vinegar (was supposed to be a cup, but I only had a bit left, so just used what I had) in hot water in the washer, added the load, soaked it for an hour, and then ran it through 3 agitations on the longest cycle. I just kept setting it back to the start before it drained. Honestly, nearly all the stains came out completely!

Yes, mom, the inside of the dryer was streaked with a thin film of hardened purple wax too. It was a little bit easier to clean after I figured out to run the dryer for a minute to warm it back up, and then after I got it as clean as I could I made sure to dry a dark load before anything else.

My only regret is that all that soaking and agitation with hot water and strong chemicals were (obviously) pretty hard on the clothes. A much better option than having to throw everything out, of course, but I wish I'd taken it a little easier, because nearly all the stains were out after the first cycle and most of the stains I was still waiting on were the ones that in the end didn't come out anyway. I read somewhere at first to prespot with Murphy® Oil Soap, and I started to do that on a couple of things before I decided to forget it. Afterwards, I realized that the only stains that hadn't come out were the ones I had prespotted with the oil soap. So, yeah, don't try that one if a crayon in the dryer happens to you. Or, if you have children, perhaps I should say when a crayon in the dryer happens to you.

I still think I might be able to remove those few stains that are left with WD-40® or Goof Off® or something like that. But I'm taking a little break from stain removal for the moment.

Good gravy, do you see how many brand names I included in this post? Shouldn't I be getting some product placement revenue?

7 comments:

Lili said...

re good gravy:

haha, and I like how you used the appropriate registered trademark signs.

Lili said...

(and congratulations on your successful crayon removal--I'm very impressed)

Anonymous said...

CONGRATULATIONS! Sorry about the extra wear to the clothes, but, still, that's a better ending to that story than any of the other crayon-in-the-dryer stories I've ever heard.

(And yes, I thought this post was scintillating.)

Stace said...

I love Oxi-clean's spray and wash. I think it is a good spot cleaner and I have tried many. I have used WD-40. It works great on crayons. I feel your pain. I am glad everything came clean. I will have to remember your concoction.

marymary said...

Stacie, that's good to know about the OxiClean spray. OxiClean has changed my life, but I've only ever tried the original powdered kind.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant.

Mary Q Contrarie said...

Thanks for the post on how to wash out crayon on clothes. I think I would of been afraid of a bad chemical reaction mixing all those products together...