How to remove stains from white clothes and white shirts

Step by step: how to remove stains from white clothes and white shirts

Safety first. Wear gloves for bleach soaks and work in a ventilated room. Never mix chlorine bleach with vinegar, ammonia or other cleaners, and rinse dish soap and stain removers out before a bleach soak.

1. 1

   Read the label and the fiber content

   Look for the bleach symbol: an empty triangle means any bleach, a triangle with two lines means non-chlorine (oxygen) bleach only, and a crossed-out triangle means no bleach. Check the fiber list for spandex, elastane or Lycra, and for wool or silk.

2. 2

   Treat the stain while it is fresh

   Blot liquids and scrape off solids, then rinse the back of the stain with cool water. A fresh stain on white cotton often comes out in the wash alone if you add the right bleach.

3. 3

   Break up oils with dish soap

   On dry fabric, put enough liquid dish soap on the stain to soak it and massage it in gently. Wait 5 minutes, then rinse it out completely with warm water. Most food, sweat and makeup stains contain some oil, and bleach cannot reach the color until the oil is gone.

4. 4

   Soak bleach-safe cotton and polyester in chlorine bleach

   Mix 1/4 cup of chlorine bleach into 1 gallon of cool water in a plastic dishpan. Fully submerge the item for 5 minutes, swirling it with a plastic spoon, then pour off the solution. This is for plain white cotton and polyester with no spandex.

5. 5

   Soak everything else in oxygen bleach

   For whites with spandex, colored logos, stripes or trims, dissolve oxygen bleach in warm water at the label rate and soak for 1 to 8 hours, depending on the product. Weigh the item down with a plate so it stays under the water.

6. 6

   Wash in hot water

   Wash in the hottest water the care label allows with a good detergent and the right booster: chlorine bleach for bleach-safe whites, oxygen bleach for everything else. Do not overload the drum; whites need room to move.

7. 7

   Check before drying and repeat if needed

   Inspect the stain while the garment is wet. If you can still see it, repeat the soak and wash. Dryer heat can make a faint stain permanent, so air dry anything you are unsure about.

How to get common stains out of a white shirt

Most stains on a white shirt come out with dish soap, a bleach soak and a hot wash, but a few need a specific first step.

For specific stains, see our guides to coffee stains, blood stains and yellow stains on white clothes.

Chlorine bleach or oxygen bleach for white clothes?

Use chlorine bleach only on bleach-safe white cotton and polyester; use oxygen bleach on whites with spandex, logos or trims, and on anything the label says is non-chlorine bleach only. Wool, silk, mohair and leather get neither.

Clorox’s stain method for white clothes pretreats with dish detergent for 5 minutes, then soaks bleach-safe items for 5 minutes in 1/4 cup of bleach per gallon of cool water before washing, and says to always avoid bleaching wool, silk, mohair, leather and spandex. For whites with spandex, Clorox recommends a color-safe oxygen stain remover soak instead, up to 1 hour with the liquid or 8 hours with the powder.

OxiClean notes that a non-chlorine oxygen bleach is color safe, so it suits white items with stripes or logos, and recommends washing whites in the hottest water the care label allows and keeping them separate from colors.

What about old or set-in stains on whites?

Old stains usually still come out with a longer soak and a repeat wash, as long as they have not been through many hot dryer cycles.

• Yellow spots that appear on stored whites are usually oil that did not wash out fully and oxidized over time; Clorox recommends breaking up the oil with dish detergent before the bleach soak.
• For overall dinginess, Tide suggests a short presoak in a bleach-alternative detergent, a wash at the hottest temperature on the label, and checking the result before drying.
• If chlorine bleach turns a shirt yellow, the fabric or its finish was not bleach-safe, or iron in your water reacted with the bleach. Switch to oxygen bleach.
• Brown or rust-colored spots after washing point to iron in the water or the washer; see our guide to rust stains on clothes.

Mistakes to avoid

• Pouring chlorine bleach straight onto the stain, which can weaken the fabric and leave a yellow spot.
• Using chlorine bleach on whites with spandex, which yellows and breaks down the stretch fibers.
• Washing whites with light colors, which slowly grays them.
• Drying a shirt before checking that the stain is gone.
• Skipping the dish soap step on oily stains, so the bleach cannot reach the color.