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SALT LAKE CITY — Do you have too many pins on Pinterest and not enough time to try them all? Don't worry — the Page Two editors of ksl.com will try them out and give you the low-down. This week on Pinterest: A showdown between DIY methods for getting your whites super white and making your own stain-fighter solution.
“How to get your dirty whites white again”
This pinlinks to a post from homemademamas.net called “Dirty little secrets: How to get your dirty whites clean again.” It’s a little list full of tips and tricks to keep your whites white, and yet the instructions on the pin weren’t anywhere to be found on the blog. They read: “HOT HOT HOT water, 1 cap of laundry detergent, 1 cup powdered dishwasher detergent, 1 cup bleach, 1/2 cup borax. You have to rewash it once to put softener in but it's the whitest you'll ever see your whites.” I gave it a try and anxiously awaited the results — and I did not see one bit of difference. It may have made some improvements, but not enough to see with the naked eye. Very disappointing. Also, I did not find the tips on the original post very helpful, either. It just seemed like a lot of work to go through to get whiter socks. Final grade: D
“How to get your whites super white”
After the first tip failed, I tried another tip from Laura at Print Your Heart Out on Etsy, who shares her method for getting her whites “super white” on her personal blog. The only materials required are bleach, dishwasher detergent and water. Let your dirtiest whites soak for 30-60 minutes, then toss everything into the washer with the rest of your whites and run a cycle. I used a little less bleach than suggested and put everything into a bucket. While this method didn’t get the toughest stains out of my husband’s mud-covered socks, it still delivered. This time I had proof: I put just one sock of a pair into the solution and the other only in the wash. Overall, I was floored by how bright my whites came out — even the ones that hadn’t been soaking. This is a sure- fire winner. Final grade: A-
“The only spot cleaner you’ll ever need”
This recipe from glamour.c om boldly claims to be for “the only spot remover you’ll ever need.” Using a mixture of blue Dawn dish soap and hydrogen peroxide, the concoction is supposed to lift stains away like magic. Only it didn’t lift anything. Literally, nothing came clean. Because the article makes this trick seem so foolproof I tried it again, thinking I must have done something wrong. And again, nothing came clean. Another disappointment. Final grade: F
DIY Oxi-Clean
There are a lot of gems in this post from Amanda at arealhousewifeandmommy.blogspot.com, including a recipe for laundry detergent and fabric softener. The only one I’ve tried so far is the recipe for homemade Oxi-Clean that I’ve seen floating around for months on Pinterest. It’s a simple mixture of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and water. You can either add this to your laundry load if you’re pre-soaking, or use it as a spot-cleaner. I tried this on a number of items: a muddy dri-fit shirt that hadn't come clean in the wash, my son’s popsicle-stained T-shirt and a dish towel with assorted kitchen yuckiness (including strawberry stains). The results were quite mixed. First of all, even though I mixed the solution up and let it dissolve, it still was a pasty mess. It cleaned the stains off the dish towel but didn’t do a thing for either shirts. Perhaps its effectiveness depends on the type of fabric or how long the stain had been sitting. Either way, without this being successful every time, it’s not worthy of my time. Final grade: C+
Next week: Easy, healthy, natural homemade snacks
