Anyone got any good tips to rejuvenate a white shirt?
It’s gone a bit grey in the wash - are there any tried-and-tested ways of bringing back the whiteness? 
I had a look at Vanish Oxy Action, but looks a bit gimmicky to me!
Wash it with no soap and dry it in the sun.
Sunlight is a natural bleach.
Or you could use actual bleach. I do it with my running shirts and socks along with my underwear about once a month. 1/4 cup for a load of whites in need of whitening does the trick. Don’t put anything in that isn’t white. If your washer has a 2nd rinse after the wash use it.
Look for some ‘bluing’ in your supermarket. Not hard on the cloth, like bleach, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results.
Second the blueing --it’ll work wonders. Be careful–it can be messy to work with.
All the “oxy” products use a mixture of sodium carbonate and sodium percarbonate. Sodium carbonate can be found by itself as “washing soda” to remove some stains. Sodium percarbonate hydrolyses to produce hydrogen peroxide (a bleaching agent, but it’s formed in very dilute amounts) and more sodium carbonate. So, while it may look like a gimmick (and the infomercials don’t help) the chemistry is sound. (The foaming versions throw citric acid in there as well.)
Yup, and if you only use enough water to make a thick paste it can really do some nice work. Make sure that the water you use is burning hot though. That seems to help.
grab some rubber gloves. if it gets on your hands it’s the very heck to get off.
cheers all - I tried some stuff from the supermarket, but if that doesn’t work I’ll unleash the blueing
I have wondered, as I can’t figure out what the heck bluing is, if mixing it with bleach would make my whites sparking and gorgeous, or turn my basement into a deathtrap.
Any ideas?
My wife has several white shirts, and bleaching no longer gets them whiter than white. It’s annoying.
Bluing is generally Prussian Blue, and the fabrics appear whiter due to the addition of a light amount of blue dye. I’m not sure what NaOCl would do to the complex, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. Best case scenario is probably that you’ll bleach out the dye.
Rit Color Remover. It’s sold in the laundry aisle with the Rit Dyes. Follow the directions - you can do it in your washing machine.
I use it a few times a year on white cotton shirts; I usually have them dry-cleaned but they can start to get a little gray or yellowish (I like heavy starch). The Color Remover does a fine job of restoring them.
VCNJ~
I am a cook, therefore I wear white clothes that get lots of stains on them. to keep them clean this is what I do. I get Oxyclean and soak my Whites with 2 scoops of the stuff in an 8 gallon bucket over night. The next day I wash my clothes with heavy duty detergent, bleach and Oxyclean.
While it has kept my Whites white, I do not know what it will do with grayed out whites. Best of luck yo you, but more than likely your best bet is to buy a new white shirt.
Any tips for yellow perspiration marks? Standard method of letting the clothes sit until laundry day, then using an otherwise good detergent hasn’t prevented them.
I’ll have to try that. I buy white or off-white bed linens exclusively and usually dinge them out in six months or so.
However, nothing ever helped my white Coolmax tee shirts. After a year or so the pits turned so yellowish tan you’d think I stole them off the backs of winos.
Bluing is indeed a dye and must be used sparingly, according to directions. Resist the urge to add more for better results, it won’t work and will produce blue fabric. Bleach will ‘set’ the bluing, rather than remove it. Only a long soaking in ammonia will remove bluing mistakes.
Bleach is hard on fabrics, bluing is not, so that’s the advantage of use it. Bluing will not remove stains though, so bleach is the choice for that.
I’s try a spray on pre-wash liquid to remove underarm stains before washing.