Two of my favorite white bras are looking dingy. I handwash them, and they’re still structurally sound; they’re just not sparkling white anymore. They’re both lightly foam padded. Could I use a chlorine or oxygen bleach on them without damaging the elastic or padding?
I’d try the oxygen bleach first, as I have seen elastic damaged by repeated long exposure to chlorine bleach. YMMV and all that.
You can use OxyClean and hand wash the bras. Let them soak a little and they should come bright white. It won’t damage them either.
Thanks, ladies, they’re soaking right now…
I had the same problem. The OxiClean didn’t help me, but it didn’t damage the bras either. When they were decrepit enough that I was willing to risk it, I did try chlorine bleach. That didn’t help either.
The best solution is to stop buying white bras. 
I suggest you sell them on the internet as “used teen lingerie;” you can easily collect enough proceeds to buy yourself four new white bras.
If you set the price point right, and sell each bra after wearing it once, you can also demonstrate the Fibonacci Sequence using this method.
You can also try ‘white dye’ - I discovered this years ago, not sure if it has bleach in it, but it really works.
Well, the OxyClean helped - one’s kinda meh, but the other looks a lot better. Unexpected bonus - all, um, faint lingering odors are completely gone. They SMELL new.
I wouldn’t usually try to revitalize old bras but I don’t wanna give these two up yet, I love the way they fit. This’ll buy me some time to find suitable replacements.
White it is, because I have too many white shirts and nothing else suitable to wear underneath them. Except beige, which looks dingy and old right off the rack.
And…
this made me laugh, though I’d probably get nailed for blatant false advertising. 
Then my work here is done. 
But don’t you hate that white-shirt-white-bra “ghost breast” look? I mean, yeah, I don’t like the beige bras either, but they do cut down on the Phantom Lingerie, as it were.
And while my bras themselves look pretty good, the straps get all dingy and I can’t get them really clean. I’ll try the Oxy-Clean.
Honestly, even with beige bras, my bra is still visible if I wear a white shirt without a tank top under it. I’d love to find a white top that I could wear without an extra layer - anybody know how I can do this?
The only way I know is to wear a camisole or underwear Tshirt, which is an extra layer. I used to work in a woman’s dress shop. If your skin tone is usually described as “white”, then wearing a beige bra is the least noticeable method, other than wearing a cami or other layer. Many white tops are made of very thin fabric, which only makes the problem worse.
My advice is to wear a brightly colored bra when trying on white tops, to see how much color shows through. Then decide if you can live with it.
It’s the same thing with white pants…unless the fabric is pretty thick (white denim or duck, for instance), there’s a pretty good chance that you will have ghost panties showing. In THAT case, wearing pantyhose and no panties is the way to go, if such things bother you.
Wash them and let them dry in the sun. Sunlight is a natural free bleach that doesn’t damage fabric.
I don’t know about their looking dingy and old, but beige bras make me think of grandmas. I’m not wearing an old-lady bra at 28. My day will come, and I love my grandma, but no way.
They completely quit making my favorite basic white bra in my size, so I’m going to have to be real nice to the ones I have. I have a few other pretty colored ones, but I don’t want to wear those every day either – and I don’t have the nerve to wear a dark blue bra under a white shirt. Why would the manufacturers suddenly decide nobody wears a 36A? I can’t be the only one, they made 'em for years.