More accurately, reduced to not likely noticed. This story begins when we get a message from our son asking about getting a stain out of a brand new dress shirt. Upon wearing it for the first time, he had apparently leaned up against something that left an incredibly nasty stain and a few smaller ones. He didn’t know when, where, or how, but had several comments informing him of the obvious and outstanding blemish before he was able to change.
He brought the shirt to us and I couldn’t tell what the stain was but it looked (and was) worse than the tarry, oily goo you could get from a grill like the cleaning demo I featured at the beginning of last summer. But the pattern meant a fairly large surface surface area was encountered and he was at a loss to recall anything that might have been the source. It was black, had about 4-6 streaks plus a few spots, and was thoroughly infused into the high grade white fabric.
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to be successful at removing this stain, so I unfortunately did not photo document the project. I do however have the process used which could be helpful if you ever have such a need to possibly salvage an expensive article of clothing that’s been assaulted with an “impossible stain.”
Five things were required to accomplish this feat:
- Several Melaleuca cleaning products
- Time
- Gentle scrubbing
- Soaking
- Patience
One really nice thing about Melaleuca products is the natural cleaning ingredients that are safe to use with any washable fabric. I started with the obvious, a full strength dab of Mela Power laundry detergent, sprayed some PreSpot stain remover on the shirt (spray bottle shown is an older design) and also used the PreSpot gel with brush top to work the cleaners into the stains in the fabric. I also sprayed Sol-U-Mel which I keep in the laundry area because it is so effective against oil based and/or gunky stains and messes. I mix the laundry room bottle at 50/50 water to concentrate ratio and didn’t resort to full strength for this project, although I probably should have.
MelaMagic heavy duty cleaner was also employed because of its power as demonstrated in my grill cleaning project. All of these were brushed into the stains using the PreSpot brush top bottle, then left to rest on the stains, brushed more, left to rest, and the process was repeated at least 3-4 times with small amounts of products added to keep everything wet. When I had achieved having the stains unnoticeable enough to be satisfied beyond what I expected to achieve, I worked them a little more and put them in the washer with Mela Power and Mela Brite Plus Oxi and just enough water to soak the shirt.
I soaked the shirt about 2½ hours then added some other laundry and ran the load. It should be noted that Melaleuca states on the Mela Brite Plus Oxi label that overnight soaking is neither required nor recommended. The actual work time was only a matter of minutes but it was most of the day for all the resting/soaking.
The result—the small stains were completely removed and the large and garment ruining stain was so faint as to be unnoticeable (the shirt has a subtle print pattern and the stain was just above the belt, both of which helped).
Interestingly, I read the care label after this success (like reading the instructions last) and found something very unexpected. Of course I knew it would say no bleach, which it did, but it also said no fabric softener or dryer sheets. I had already used fabric softener in the wash but opted not to put the shirt in the dryer in case we wanted to make another removal attempt. No damage was done to the fabric because whatever ingredients used in conventional products that made the manufacturer put that warning on the label are not present in Melaleuca’s fabric softener so we dodged a bullet. My son was happy with the shirt and brought it with him on his trip to Cancun.
This all took place last week but I set this post up for a week later on November 12 because that is his 27th birthday which makes for interesting timing (and you might notice I usually post somewhere around the 10th to 15th of the month).