I have a couple of shirts (one 100% cotten, and the other is a poly/cotten blend, the tag didn’t say a percent), and they feel really greasy, even straight out of the dryer.
We have very hard water (as in you boil a pot of water, and a nail forms on the bottom of the pot), our water sofener doesn’t work (at least that is what I’m told). I’m thinking that the water might be the cause of the greasyness, but my other shirts are not greasy, only these two, if it was the water causing the greasyness, wouldn’t all my clothing be greasy? They are older shirts (IE i’ve had them for more than a year), if that has any importance.
I always wash with all warm water, detergent, and rinse with sofener.
What is causing my clothing to be greasy, and how can I stop or reverse this?
The 100% cotten shirt from aboce used to be blue, but now it is bluey yellow,** is there some way to get rid of the yellow** (I don’t think bleach would work, I’ve heard that bleach makes cotten objects completely disintegrate)?
It might be the fabric softener making your clothes greasy. That is, after all, how fabric softener works. If your mom uses Bounce sheets in the dryer, there is sometimes enough residual softener still in the dryer to make stuff feel really greasy, and your using fabric softener in the washer will make it worse. See this column for more info. The softener may also be what’s causing the buildup. Try doing a few loads without softener to see if that makes any appreciable difference.
Use bleach to get rid of the yellow. It does not cause fabric to disintegrate. (Although I guess if you soaked it in full-strength bleach for a few days, it might.)
p.s. – It just occurred to me that perhaps you’ve never used bleach. You always dilute it with water. In a sinkful of water you’d use about 1/2 cup of bleach and let things soak for a couple of hours. You can just keep checking until you feel it’s white enough. This should also get rid of the grease you described.
If the shirt is blue, you definitely do not want to use bleach. It won’t disintegrate the fabric, but it will bleach it white (or, rather, a much lighter shade of blue, most likely). That is, if you’re talking about regular chlorine bleach. You might want to try color safe bleach instead.
(Disclaimer: I have not used the product referenced above, and cannot vouch for its efficacy.)
I wouldn’t use a liquid bleach on that blue shirt. I would use a powdered bleach that comes in a box. Powdered bleach is more gentle on colored materials.
A weak dye called “bluing” was once the common method to eliminate or conceal a yellowish tinge to clothing (or grey hair - sometimes this was overdone, leading to the once-popular expression “blue-haired old ladies”). It’s not the laundry aisle staple that it once was, but you an still buy it. Google for [laundry bluing]
Today, one can obtain generally better results via this mechanism by using “laundry brighteners” which actually fluoresce under UV to make whites appear very white, and colors less dingy. They often also apply an essentially imperceptible blue tinge. Many laundry detergents contain them, and they are also sold separately.
Sodium borate (20 Mule Team Borax) or 1/2 tsp of TSP (sodium triphosphate) per load can eliminate some kinds of yellowing by actually cleaning them off. (I’m not sure I’d recommend TSP for laundry. In the 70s, laundry water phosphates acted as fertilizer for algal and plant blooms in streams and lakes. “No phosphates” was a big selling point in ads and labels until they were finally eliminated altogether.)
Chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) will weaken cotton, but you might not notice this effect, depending on the fabric and its use. I never bothered with the stuff (or separating out my whites from my colors, for that matter) until medical school, when I was exposed to every imaginable bodily fluid and infectious agent, making a good sterilizing bleach wash -the only practical way to assure inactivation of viruses- prudent to say the very least. My 100% cotton clinical jackets, and any cotton-poly blends, showed almost no effect from years of weekly washing and bleaching, but my underwear and t-shirts were noticeably affected. I also noticed that the cotton thread I used for repairs or button replacements seemed more vulnerable than the thread the seams and buttons were sewn with originally.
It wasn’t a huge problem: the underwear became more prone to holes or tears in 6-8 months, when they used to take a year or more (long enough that I’d never bothered to actually quantify it). I think the sturdiness of the thread in the cloth is important, since I wouldn’t wear any one T-shirt or underwear every weak, but each clinical jacket got at least a day or two of use every week with no ill damage.
You might also try washing soda (Arm and Hammer makes it; you should be able to find it in the laundry-detergent aisle). It also works as a laundry booster, and while I haven’t used it myself, have heard some good things about it from housekeeping maven Peg Bracken.
Most of the suggestions above are in regard to the yellowing of the shirts, which as you can see has several possible solutions.
As regards the greasiness, however: I don’t like fabric softeners specifically because they make clothes greasy (although I’ve always described it as “waxy”). It’s my experience that such greasiness accumulutes more on synthetics than on cotton, but I won’t swear to that. I have a couple old pillowcases that I don’t use anymore because they’re so waxy, but I haven’t tried to “fix” them; I’ll probably just throw them away.
A couple thoughts though: when I get one of those stubborn grease stains that won’t go away, I hit it with some Spray&Wash or Shout, then let it sit for a few days before I wash it, and it comes out perfectly. Maye try that. I would also think tha washing them in HOT water once in a while might serve to keep such greasiness to a minimum.
Once fabrix softenercombines with the hard water minerals and locks itself into the fabric of a shirt, it’s practically impossible to get rid of without damaging the shirt. You had best just throw it away.