Happy Friday: Summer Clean-Up
Sent from reader, Tracey:
It’s that time of year again to clean up and pack away all the kiddos summer things. My daughter has a favorite pair of flip flops that looked beyond saving. But I was able to use FELS-NAPTHA which is a really inexpensive (about one dollar) laundry bar sops that gets out any stain with a little pre-treat before washing. This works on all kinds of items and has saved the day more than once in my house! Now I can pack these up and get another summer out of them! 😄
HAPPY FRIDAY! 😀
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That’s AWESOME Tracy! Will you come to my house and scrub all my family’s yucky shoes? 😉
Cool! How do you use a bar soap as a pre-treater?
Just rub it on the stain like you’re coloring on a coloring book 🙂
It’s weird they’re so dirty but don’t have that foot indentation lol
Lol, I noticed that too. Also the heel part looks new, the white in the heart looks bright white. Good advertisement for Fels-Naptha now I want to run out and by some.
*buy not by 😄
I love that stuff!! I use it on my sons white baseball pants and once I’m done they almost look brand new again!
That’s exactly what I use it for!
Just “feels naptha-ed” my daughters white school uniform shirts. Never thought to use it on flip flops…great idea! Thanks for sharing!
That’s fantastic! Where do you buy it?
I’ve found it at Kroger and Walmart in the detergent section.
Thank you!
A friend sold me her 5 year old $400 coach diaper bag (yes it was real) and it was so stained and dirty inside. She sold it to me for $40 cause it was in rough condition. So I took it home, used fels naptha on it and viola! Most of the stains are gone! The baby blue fabric inside looks so good!!!!
Will this soap clean yellow spots (neck area) on white shirts?
Thank you
Yes, for me it works better than bleach.
I want to know the answer to this too! More like yellow pit stains on my husband’s undershirts lol!
Yes it does work on set stains. I’ve used it on hand me downs my kids have been given and works great! I haven’t found anything that was a challenge to get out with it either.
Does it discolor/thin out fabric?
Fels Naptha and sunning took care of the yellow neck on my husband’s beloved white dress shirt.
For under arm (mostly deodorant) and neck yellow stains, I use “Datu Puti” – it’s a white vinegar from the Asian market. The smell is so strong, but it works better than our regular distilled white vinegar. Cost less than $2 per big bottle. WHat I do Is I wet the area with hot water, put some blue dawn and soak in Datu Puti. After a couple of minutes, I manually hand wash the area with just a bit of the hottest water I can tolerate, just enough to mix it with the Dawn & Datu Puti, but not enough enough to remove them.
——soak in a 5 gallon bucket, for 5 hours with three of the small scoops of OXI-Clean in hot water—–
this is what gets out ring around the collar and lots of other things! It has saved us money on clothes that seemed to be goners after trying bleach and scrubbing with all kinds of other detergents and pre-treatments. (started using oxi when I pulled my daughter’s baby clothes out of storage and realized that milk/formula turns yellow with time)
Does it happen to work on set on stains?
My son wears white shirts to work and it removed ink pen stains. I don’t know if the water where I live but the brand name stain fighters don’t work for me but this stuff does.
I have never heard of this before… I am so excited to try it! Thanks for the tip!
Just a warning, I used this but have found it is not suitable for my daughters skin. It brings her out in a severe rash, and is not vegetarian.
This is good to know it is not vegetarian, I will not be buying it again (I have a bar I bought a long time ago before I read labels very well on household items). I have had bad luck with this soap personally anyways on whites. I treated 2 of my sons shirts that had food stains on them and they put yellow spots on them after they were washed. It will not come out. Everyone seems to love this stuff so I guess it is just me.
It’s done that for me when I allowed the soap/lather dry out on clothes. Lather the shirts up and soak (being careful to submerge fabric) in a bucket. Washes right out for me.
That’s 1 of the main and very few ingredients in most homemade laundry soaps. I also have never considered using it as a stain stick but will from now on! Amazing stuff!
Has anyone tried this on stains in sinks, etc.? I have a white kitchen sink that is so hard to keep white and I am not a big fan of bleach.
We have good success with bar keepers friend on the sink.
I also use bar keepers friend on my white sink– love it
Another Bar Keepers Friend user here. Works to remove stuff even Soft Scrub with Bleach won’t from my white sink.
Bar keepers friend will clean just about anything! Its the only thing that cleans our hard water off of everything! 🙂
Be careful with barkeepers. I used it on my white bathtub because a friend recommended it and it scratched it. Now I have rust permanently in that area.
completely saturate a towel with vinegar and let it sit on the sink stains over night, we do this for our tub, works great, and no harsh chemicals! cheap too
Has anyone tried the Zote bar soap for a pretreater of stains?
Yes i love it because its cheap, works great, and i has a clean smell. The “blue” bar works better than the pink for me. I just spray a little plain water that i have in an empty bottle than scrub with the soap and throw it in the washer.
Where do you buy Zote? I’ve never heard of before. TIA
Here I get it at walmart with all the laundry soap or stain removers. Its .98 cents. Its a mexican soap and we use it all the time. If you have and want to try you can also go a mexican store/ market. I just spray water and the soap like you were coloring a book and throw it in the washer. If its really bad i scrub a little. It also works really good on shoes. I just cleaned my daughter’s converse.
Thanks Cinthia 🙂
Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to just buy a jug of naptha and use it instead?
Maybe you should google pure naptha. That stuff is really dangerous in its liquid form. Highly flammable!!
Is this only suitable for white clothing? Can this be used on a light blue uniform shirt as a pre-treat? Or will it “bleach” it? Thanks!
she used it on pink flop flops so im’ guessing no bleaching
I use it on all of my kid’s clothes. No bleaching effect.
Thanks!
Does anyone know if old.oil stains or grease fr food can still be treated? Thanks.
Candy have you tried Palmolive on the grease/ oil stains. I put a dab on a grease stain and use a small tooth brush to work it in and then wash warm. Works everytime, even on older set in stains
Which Palmolive? The basic green original one?
Thanks. I also would like to know what color of Palmolive. THanks!
The best thing for grease stains I have found is the goop handcleaner usually found in the automotive section. I was using it and notice it mentioned working on clothing stains so I tried it. Goop is now my go to stain treater on any grease or oil based stains.
Love this- it is the only thing I use on baseball pants. I use the dawn foam soap for grease and ink. It works great!
A staple in my house as well. Use it to pretreat my messy messy messy 20 months old clothing. Seventh generation vanilla/geranium he liquid is what goes in the main wash.
Just a tip, I keep my bar in a ball jar, that way when your done using.it to remove stains and it’s all wet and icky you can just pop it in the jar and be done. I also add half a bar to my homemade laundy detergent; this will make 5 lbs of detergent which lasts me almost a year for under $10. We have been using this detergent now for two years and love it
Would you mind posting the laundry detergent recipe you use? There seem to be so many out there. Looking for a good one.
There is a wonderful blog called OneGoodThingByJillee that has great “recipes” for making your own laundry detergent, fabric softener, all purpose cleaners, etc. Like Kristina said, you can make your own for pennies, and you know exactly what ingredients are in it!
I was just wondering what to use to try and “save” my flip flops, I was going to try throwing them in the washing machine or dishwasher. I never thought of my good old standby Fels Naptha, thanks!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008FQQDAC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008FQQDAC&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwhip2saveco-20&linkId=PA2FQX3TH7FTWWYD
Its only .98 at walmart. The also sell a bag of flakes if you wanted to make a homemade laundry soap.
I’ve always used regular bar soap as a pre-treater in a pinch, like when we are staying at a hotel. It works well even on breastfed baby poop incidents, which makes worse stains than formula spit up!
I make my own laundry detergent. Fels- Naptha is one of the ingredients. I think it cleans my clothes better than store bought detergent.
If you think they are sturdy enough I just throw them in with my laundry