Impeccably white clothes exist outside ads as well, and you can make your clothes white even if you’re using environmentally friendly, homemade solutions instead of expensive store bought products that are loaded with chemicals.
How to use vinegar
Vinegar is an excellent disinfectant, which can be used to clean soiled clothes as well, such as children’s clothes and kitchen towels. When you wash these, pour a cup of vinegar into the dispenser of the washing machine, and run the cycle as usual.
Socks that used to be white but now are hopelessly gray can be made white again with the following method: add a cup of vinegar to a pot of hot water, and soak the socks in this mixture overnight. You can make mold stains disappear if you soak the clothes in a mixture of vinegar and baking soda, and then wash them as usual.
This is how lemon helps
Lemon juice is a great cleaner that can be used to remove rust stains. Pour a glass of lemon juice into the dispenser and run the usual washing cycle. You can mix lemon juice with baking soda and soak the clothes in this mixture to turn them white and stain-free again. Clothes stained by perspiration or deodorant can be treated with a mixture of salt and lemon juice. Rub the mixture into the stained areas to whiten and deodorize the clothes. Hot water with some lemon slices added makes an excellent soaking and whitening solution.
Salt to treat yellowed and grayed textiles
Clothes and especially curtains can turn yellow because of cigarette smoke. In this case, soaking textiles in salty water is the best way to make them white again. After soaking, the clothes need to be washed in the washing machine.
The beneficial effects of baking soda
The power of baking soda is not just an ad slogan. Besides your teeth, it can also turn your clothes whiter. To treat slightly grayed clothes and curtains, pour about 10 l of water into the bathtub, and add ½ kilogram of baking soda. Soak the clothes in this mixture for several hours, and then rinse them. If possible, dry the clothes in sunshine to make them even whiter.
To treat less problematic stains, add some baking soda to the detergent. If you have just run out of baking soda, you may use a few packages of baking powder. Baking soda also deodorizes carpets and cleans yellowed fingernails.
Surprising solutions
A few aspirin tablets thrown into the washing machine make sweat stains disappear from clothes.