Add half a cup of white vinegar to your white laundry. This can remove the grey or yellow hues from your white clothes and restore their original color. Fabric whitening products: Specially designed fabric whitening products keep white clothes looking bright and fresh.
Pour 1 cup of distilled white vinegar into a gallon of hot water. Add clothing and let soak overnight or for at least an hour. Hand wash or launder clothing on the appropriate wash cycle. Line dry the clothing or put it in the dryer on a heat level appropriate for the fabric.
This one will blow your mind! Use 2% cow milk, yes, plain milk for a non-chemical bleaching option. Milk is great for bleaching 100% white cotton garments. Add some milk in a bucket and soak the garment for a couple of hours. Rinse and wash as usual. For an added boost, add vinegar to the laundry load.
To help whiten white and light-colored items like clothing, sheets and towels, you can use baking soda instead of bleach for a natural laundry boost. Adding baking soda along with your detergent can also help brighten colorful fabrics and may prevent white garments from yellowing.
We added half a cup of distilled white vinegar to the washing machine drum with a white load. We washed as normal using detergent and following the care label instructions. It's not only simple, it also won't bleach anything with colour in it.
A naturally occurring mineral, borax is a chlorine bleach alternative that helps remove stains and cuts through dulling residue. Add a half cup of powdered borax per one gallon of warm water. Add the white clothes and allow them to soak for at least 30 minutes or longer. Wash as usual.
The acid in vinegar is suitable for removing dye stains. Mix it with equal parts water, spray it on the affected fabric, and let it soak in for 15 to 30 minutes before rinsing thoroughly.
Baking Soda and Distilled White Vinegar
For overall whitening, dissolve one cup of baking soda in a basin of hot water and soak for at least one hour before laundering. Follow up with a distilled white vinegar rinse in your washing machine to enhance the effect.
Use vinegar. Like baking soda, you can use distilled white vinegar as either a bleach-free pretreating solution or as an additive to a standard wash cycle. White vinegar is an acidic solution that can be used to brighten the appearance of white fabrics.
The best thing about baking soda in the laundry is its ability to act as a natural boosting agent for bleach. You can use 1/2 cup of bleach and 1/2 cup of baking soda together for white loads. The baking soda masks some of the bleach smell and makes the bleach even more effective.
Our overall best pick for laundry whiteners is the OxiClean White Revive. Not only will this oxygen-based whitener brighten your whites, but it also works on your colored clothes, too (although you should only use it on colorfast fabrics).
White school shirts and polo T-shirts can start looking grey after repeat washes, even when doing a white wash. To brighten them up, add a couple of dashes of washing up liquid to your washing machine drum. Don't put too much in, a third of a cap full should be plenty.
Wash the stained item with cold water and normally used soap or detergent. You can also soak the entire garment in a bowl of hydrogen peroxide. Let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the stained clothing from the hydrogen peroxide and rinse it out in cold water.
Soak clothes in salt water -- Salt is inexpensive, environmentally friendly and great for keeping your colors bright. Before you wash that colorful new top, soak it overnight in salt water. Simply fill your washer with cold water, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of salt, and then add your clothes.
Hydrogen Peroxide
You can use hydrogen peroxide to whiten and brighten clothes, disinfect laundry, and remove stains. Pour it directly on stains such as blood. Add one cup of hydrogen peroxide to whites in the washing machine to brighten them. Add one cup to a load of diapers to whiten, deodorize, and disinfect.
Hydrogen peroxide is one of the best remedies for bleaching and removing stains on white fabrics. Simply add a cup of it to the washing machine along with your usual detergent and you'll get a snowy-white effect.
Create a soaking solution by dissolving half a cup of baking soda in a basin or sink filled with warm water. Submerge the yellowed clothes and let them soak for a few hours or overnight. Afterward, rinse the garments thoroughly and proceed with regular laundering.
Baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, lemon juice, white vinegar, and borax are all natural and effective solutions that can help keep your clothes looking bright and clean. By using these alternatives, you can avoid the harmful effects of bleach and keep your clothes looking their best.
Adding vinegar directly to the wash with your laundry detergent may compromise its cleaning performance. Laundry detergents are formulated for specific pH levels, which may be disrupted by the acidity of vinegar, leading to less effective cleaning. It's best to avoid mixing them to ensure optimal results.
White vinegar, also known as distilled vinegar or spirit vinegar, is made by fermenting grain alcohol (ethanol) which then turns into acetic acid. Water is then added to the vinegar, so white vinegar is made of five to ten percent acetic acid and ninety to ninety-five percent water.
For coloured stains on white garments, white vinegar or baking soda for weak spots and oxygen bleach for stronger ones. Soak clothes in cold water with the aid of vinegar, then washing; or soaking in oxygen bleach, then rinsing.
Soak the affected garment in white vinegar
'You can soak the stained clothing in equal parts cold water and white vinegar for at least 30 minutes before washing to help relax the fibers and release the dye,' she explains, 'then, just wash as normal to get dingy whites white again. '
This discoloration is surprisingly difficult to remove–a regular cycle with bleach is usually not enough. Instead, try presoaking with ¼ cup Clorox® Disinfecting Bleach added to 1 gallon of water for 5 minutes, and then machine wash the items again.