Help with stains on kids clothes!

furrypig

Ok 2 different problems...
1. DD's rather lovely Monsoon (bought in sale and given to her for her birthday!) is part silk and dry clean only. She has spilt something on it at the top down the fronty and the dry cleaners say they can't do anything about it. Any ideas?? Otherwise it is totally ruined!

2. DS's white polo shirts from school are so mucky it's a nightmare! I normally use non bio at 40 degrees but this won't shift the stain. I have tried increasing temp, using bio and spraying the mess (can be anything eg this week we have a mix of strawberry, blackberry orange juice and many unrecognisables!) but the stains still don't completely go. Thought about bleaching but a friend said it makes the shirts fall apart after a couple ot times doing that so it really isn't very money saving!


Looking forward to hearing some of your expert opinions!

Thanks in advance

Furrypig

Becles

Have you tried Shout spray?

Spray it on, leave for 10 mins and wash as normal. If it's a bad stain, I rub it into the stain after spraying.

I've got a very messy son too and it works on his clothes.

Rachie_B

for the white polo shirts squirt some stardrops on the stain,rub in ,leave for a while then wash as normal

try and hang out to dry in the sunshine if you can as this helps to brighten the white and bleach the stains too

janeawej

i often very carefully handwash silk, what are the other fabrics in the blend? if it is going to be unwearable anyway i would risk washing by hand very gently pref with a liquid detergent, colour may run a b it if its bright/dark, be very gentle and rinse well, to dry don t wring but lay a large towel/towels out and lie dress on top roll towel up with dress in middle and pat to remove most of the water, then dry flat. good luck

janeawej

as for other stains hav eu tried swarfega handwash? i find that removes virtualy everything!

gooismeid

Re: silk stuff, I used to work for a silk merchants and there's no reason why you can't wash silks - APART from handwoven silk dupion, which is the kind which has those tiny rough nobbly bits in it. The preponderance of "dry clean only" labels in clothes is entirely due to costcutting on the part of manufacturers because they can't be bothered to fork out for proper wash tests, and dryclean is a useful catch-all to prevent people bringing stuff back if it says "wash at 40 degrees" and they've managed to ruin it by not following the instructions.

Anyway, back to silk: if the dress is made with handwoven silk dupion, you could try washing it but the silk will never look the same as it did before washing - it'll go a bit crinkly and won't be as crisp. But, if the choice is between throwing it away and having a go, I'd have a go. Cold water, soapflakes or non-bio handwash solution (I've even used fairy liquid at a pinch), don't scrub it hard or you'll make it go a bit fluffy on the surface, rinse it in LOTS of cold water, hang to dry and iron while still a bit damp. Worth a try.

Re: white polo shirts, try soaking in either Stardrops or Ecover bleach (and this is a less destructive bleach than the normal kind so you can soak them for 24 hours). Then wash as normal and hang in the sunshine. Given that you can get polo shirts for as little as a quid each at some supermarkets, it's not worth obsessing over if you have one or two that don't get completely clean - cut them up and use them for dusters. I'm all for relieving the strain of having school-age kids at every opportunity!

furrypig

I have just bought my first bottle of stardrops (so excited just need to trawl through all the stardrops thread to find out how to use it!) so I think that's what I'll try I now have 4 polo shirts to try and get clean this weekend!

Will let you know how it goes.

Hopefully will try and hand wash silk dress next week.

Thanks everyone!