Stain Removal Success!

A few months ago, I bought three Vested Gentress dresses at an estate sale and was about to list them when I discovered that two of them had old-looking yellow stains on the front. Discouraged, I put them away.

Well, I was feeling ambitious today and thought, what the hell, I have nothing to lose. So I brought out the Clorox bleach pen, which I have been afraid to use up to now. I squeezed out some gel onto the stains, waited a minute, rinsed it out -- looks good, but not perfect. Repeated steps a few times on both dresses, then machine-washed and dried.

Voila--all stains are gone, no fabric damage. I think it's important to rinse the bleach off quickly or it will damage the fabric. These dresses are 65% poly, 35% cotton and the stains were on the pale background color (luckily).

 

By the way, I tried to use a swear word in the previous post, but it was automatically changed to dang. That would have been okay, but it was the first word in the sentence and should have had a capital D. I couldn't figure out how to fix it, so I deleted the sentence. Feel free to use your imagination. It was something like "Dang that slobby woman!"

 

Thanks for telling us!

I was leery of a bleach pen as well. there is was dabbing something with white vinegar for weeks.

What was the pale background color? off white or something else...that would be important to know.

chris

 

One was pale pink and one was pale lilac. I was afraid of bleaching it white, so I left the bleach on just for a minute, then rinsed quickly with cold water before trying again.

 

so no "set it and forget it" LOL

It probably will differ on different types of fabric so i will have to test on fabric scraps before i try it on a dress that i have with a small spot...

another experiment awaiting me upon my return!

chris

 

That is nice to know. I bought a bleach pen a few weeks ago but have not used it yet.

 

I don't know if we have bleach pens here, but I have
a couple of print dresses (one is a Lilly) with the same
sounding stains - I wonder if bleach on a q-tip would work?

I've been afraid to try anything.

Sue

 

The good thing about the Clorox bleach pen is that the bleach is in a gel form so it doesn't run. It will stay where you put it until you wipe it or rinse it away. Bleach on a q-tip should work too if you can control it.

 

I looked today for a bleach pen but didn't see one. I did see a bleach
stick which would probably work, but I think I'll try the q-tip and see
how that works. Will report back any results.

Sue