The subject line pretty much says it all. That, and I’m again switching deodorants.
What techniques and/or products do you use to remove the waxy buildup from a shirt? It’s been through the wash a few times, so it’s not like a quick shot of Shout will do the trick (I tried.)
Or should I just buy all-new shirts as more than website has suggested?
Man, I have ruined dozens of T-shirt armpits with hardened deodorant stains over the years. I have no idea how to clean or remove them, but at least it’s not just you.
Congratulations Lou! You now have what we call a “redneck lawn-mowin’ shirt.” Just cut the sleeves off with a pair of Fiskars scissors, eliminating all portions of stiff fabric. These are particularly great shirts if they have some sort of logo on them: a brand of beer, Lynyrd Skynyrd, an automotive logo, you get the idea.
I switched to a gel deo and the underarm shirt plaque has diminished considerably.
I have to say, one of the hottest commercials out there is the one encouraging all these quite attractive ladies to wear their shirts inside out to demonstrate the no-residue deodorant. No, you never “see” anything (just the before/after), but it’s still an incredibly sexy ad.
Sadly, the anti-perspirant in question is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Subway Prophet, I wish I had good news for you, but I’m pretty sure your shirts are headed for the rag bin.
Don’t use deodorant with wax.
Hey, I thought of something. I once saw my mother-in-law soak a rag in ammonia and put it on burnt-on grease in the oven. She said after it soaked for a while, it would come off easily. (Don’t ask me-- I’ve got a self-cleaning oven.)
What about doing the same thing with these shirts? Soak the 'pit area and let it sit for a while, then wash as normal. Maybe it’d work. If not, ammonia’s cheap and it won’t hurt your washing machine or anything like that. Might be worth a try.
Lick it. Not only can it get rid of the buildup, it tastes so good!
…and so salty!
I’d think that dry cleaning would remove a wax buildup. Sure, it would cost a bit, but it would probably only need to be done once or twice in the life of the shift.
If you try Lissa 's ammonia method, just make sure you don’t have any bleach around!
But a new tee shirt costs less than dry cleaning.
Thanks to everyone who’s posted so far.
I think I’ll try the ammonia trick on a couple of shirts. Some of the others may go to the dry cleaner’s too, since I really don’t want to replace them. (My typical T-shirt costs about $8-12 - not exactly cheaper to buy a new shirt rather than take them to a $1.25 dry cleaner’s.)
I’d be using a gel deodorant, but I haven’t been able to find any non-antipersperant gel deodorants since I moved to Fort Worth. There’s plenty of non-antipersperant deodorants available here, just not in gel. :dubious:
I must be living wrong…I have never ever had any deodorant build-up on any piece of clothing I have owned, or my children, or the ex-husband…and we use deodorant every day. What are you people doing differently? I use a solid stick…Dove, to be precise, and the boy uses Old Spice Active…we’ve always used sticks, no problems ever.
We used to have this problem with my husband’s shirts. It wasn’t just the deodorant, 'cos we used the same one. And in an Australian summer I sweat, sorry, “glow” like anything. But my shirts were OK - his had (sorry about this) encrusted stains.
Solution:
1 - soak affected shirts with Nappy-San every 5th wash or so. Nappy-San is an oxygen, rather than a chlorine, bleach. It was developed for sanitising nappies hence the name (trans to American - soaking and disinfecting diapers, but Diaper-SAD doesn’t have that marketing ring to it 
). It shouldn’t affect the colour, but as ever you should spot check first.
2 - switch from poly-cotton to cotton shirts - less build-up.
Try boiling the shirts in plain water, I have had success with this method.
kittenblue : Some people get build up and some people don’t. I have no idea why. My husband gets no build up my son and I do. The one difference in our situation is that my husband hardly sweats ever.
I actually get a waxy coating on my skin that won’t wash off. I had to not wear antiperspirant for 10 days and it was 4 days until I sweated in that area. I switched to spray and don’t have a problem any more.
I just ran into this problem, as it happens. Now, in my case it was white residue on black T-shirts, so YMMV and all that, but the following worked like a charm for me:
Basically, just soak them in white vinegar overnight, then wash as normal. Easy-peasy!
…It’s a good thing it worked too, 'cause most of my wardrobe is black t-shirts, and the residue was on practically all of them. Ah, the joys of being a quasi-sorta-gothy-type-person!
Oooh, I got plenty of white vinegar and a couple of shirts I can experiment with. Thanks, jainsafel!
Deodorant? What’s that?
It’s why you can’t get a date.
(I kid, I kid!)