Toothpaste Laundry Magic - Sis 1

Not too long ago, one of my lovely sisters-in-law very kindly allowed me to use her wardrobe for several days. I had driven 5 hours to get near her house and hadn't realized that I had completely forgotten my suitcase. I had always suspected that we wore about the same size of clothes, so I called and she packed me a bag of clothes, including two different choices of dresses and shoes to wear that Sunday. They all fit me well, and I was very thankful not to have to wear the same clothes for 5 days straight.

I washed her clothes in my mother-in-law's washer, except for what I was wearing at laundry time, which included a white shirt with a stain on it. So, as I was washing those clothes out by hand in the bathroom sink, I was determined to get the stain out as a "thank you" for her kindness in letting me borrow the clothes.

This stain was not just any old stain. It appeared to be made by black permanent marker, and I could tell that she had scrubbed the thing before. It didn't show when I wore it, as the shirt was used only to make another shirt more modest, but any stain's a bad stain, right?

I was scrubbing away, not making any progress, when I noticed a tube of whitening toothpaste on the counter. I thought, "What the heck, I'll try it." And it worked.

I told my husband about my discovery on the way home from our trip. He decided to test my findings. He got one of his white dress shirts that had some armpit and collar stains. He scrubbed with bleach on one side of the shirt and toothpaste on the other. (Yes, he does most of his own laundry--we just won't get into why.)

I don't know how he applied the bleach on the one side of his shirt, but I think he just poured it on directly (he IS a man.) Instead of removing his stains on that side, the bleach actually made bigger yellow stains on the shirt (I've had this happen on white cotton towels before. It's very maddening, because it looks like big old pee spots.) The toothpaste removed the stains from the other side of the shirt, and then my husband used it to remove the bleach stains on the bleach side of the shirt.

So, I now have a dollar-store tube of extra-whitening toothpaste in my laundry arsenal. I haven't tried  it on colored clothes yet. If I get brave enough to do it, I will update the post, but for now, I have a great stain remover for white clothes.