Remove stubborn stains and restore whites
Light-coloured clothing is particularly popular in spring and summer as it contrasts nicely with a sun tan. However, whites are both a curse and a blessing because while clothes, underwear, towels and bed linen look particularly sleek in bright white, the first stains, discolouration and hint of grey have exactly the opposite effect: the laundry looks old and uncared for.
May 17, 2023 • 6 min reading time
White, clean, fresh: how to wash white laundry effortlessly!
Here at CALIDA, we’d like to talk you through how to get your yellowed laundry sparkling white again in just three steps. We’ll show which tips from housewives are proven myths and which home remedies really restore your whites.
Washing in the washing machine is often not enough for heavily soiled laundry. For this reason, we recommend that you pre-treat either individual stains or the entire item of clothing. The latter could be necessary, for example, if your pieces are looking a bit grey or if your white laundry has discoloured because you accidentally washed it with a coloured garment.
For individual, smaller, but still stubborn stains, you can try using gall soap, for example, which you can normally get from a drugstore. Rub this into the affected area and wash the garment in the washing machine as usual. If you’re using it on delicate fabrics, you should first apply the gall soap to an inconspicuous area to make sure that it’s okay to use on the material.
To pre-treat one or more items of clothing at the same time, you can leave them in a mixture of warm water and citric acid or white vinegar for about an hour. You can soak delicate fabrics in a water and (butter)milk mixture overnight instead. The lactic acid makes it easier for the stains to come off in the next wash cycle. These three home remedies should, however, never be put directly into the washing machine, as vinegar and citric acid are too harsh and milk could cause unpleasant odours after a while.
After pre-treatment, it’s time for a wash cycle in the washing machine. Heavy-duty or general-purpose detergents are usually used for white laundry, as they contain bleach to counteract greying. To boost the effects of your detergent, you can try adding some washing soda – which you can also get from the drugstore. If you want, you can also pre-treat your laundry in a mixture of about two tablespoons of washing soda to 10 litres of water.
In addition to heavy-duty detergent and washing soda, higher washing temperatures of 40, 60 or even 90°C can also help to produce better results when washing white underwear, towels and hard-wearing, heavily soiled white clothing. Check the label to see whether your clothing can be washed at these temperatures. While cotton underwear, terry cloth towels and white polyester clothing are pretty hard-wearing, you need to be more careful if you want to get your delicate nightdresses or your yellowed bra white again.
You can also do something to remove dirt, greying and discolouration when drying white laundry. This trick is worth its weight in gold, particularly during the summer season: simply hang or lay your white clothes out in the sun after washing! The UV rays bleach the fibres and make yellowed laundry white again – effortless, gentle and sustainable.
Always try to dry your clothes in the sun when the weather is good.
We’ve already introduced you to some effective home remedies to restore your whites in our article. This includes pre-treatment with citric acid, vinegar and yes, even with the lactic acid found in milk and buttermilk. Drying in the sun is also an effective home remedy for removing stains on white laundry.
But with these handy hacks, comes a few myths about washing white clothes. This includes, for example, using baking powder. This home remedy isn’t just recommended for washing clothes, it crops up as a solution to almost every situation i.e. whitening your teeth and clearing drains.
However, it contains such a small amount of sodium bicarbonate that it has no effect when washing laundry. Instead of baking powder, salt and other supposed home remedies, we advise you to use pure sodium bicarbonate. But as this starts to clump in contact with water, you’re better off using washing soda to optimise the effects of your heavy-duty detergent against discolouration.
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