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Each time I grab clothes for our youngest from storage I am faced with stains. I put clothes away washed and clean, but they come out with these awful, yellowed stains. They are protein stains that develop from proteins left in the fibers from drool and other things. I use to think that there was no saving them. I tried washing every which way and nothing worked. So when our youngest was due and I was faced with a tub of stained newborn clothes, I put my cloth diaper knowledge to work. I used the sun!
It worked beautifully! All of our baby clothes were saved and it was easy. I have since used this on just about any, and all, natural stains with great success. Here’s what I do:
I have a wash tub in my laundry area, so I fill it about half full of hot water and added 2 or 3 massive scoops of Oxiclean. I mean the big green scoop that it comes with. I put on my rubber gloves and dissolve the Oxiclean in the water. I then add every piece of stained clothing, being sure to get each saturated. My objective is not to have it be a big pool of water, but just enough to get everything sopping and just a little left over (I want that Oxiclean super concentrated!).
You could do this in your tub or even in the washing machine – which would be ideal.
I let it all soak overnight. If I did this in the wash tub, I would transfer the laundry to the washing machine with the help of a bucket. I fill the machine as usual – using warm water and then add a normal amount of detergent. Do a normal wash cycle, but do not dry in the dryer!
Then, here comes the rest of the magic. I hung them all out to dry in the sunshine.
Voila! Every stain was gone. They all looked like new! I couldn’t believe it. Some of the stains were awful too. I had a couple of outfits that were headed for the trash, but I thought I’d toss them in and give them a chance. They look like new too. Wow, just wow.
Thank you oxygen action and sunshine, you have saved me, yet again 
This is great for getting clothes ready for donating or yard sales, for salvaging stained family favorites and more.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I think you should post some pics of your before and afters! I keep meaning to try this.
WOW! dang, just a few days too late though… we just got down all the baby clothes for our new baby coming in a few weeks… i washed some clothes 3 plus times using ALLLLLL sorts of "stain removers"…. the ones that didn't make it went out to the giveaways and already donated… nuts! but those were just the newborn clothes, so i'm excited to see how the rest turn out! thanks!
I'll try to get some photos next time I get some out.
holley – that's exactly when I found this method. I had pulled out all of our newborn clothes for our youngest and found half of the clothes covered in awful yellow stains. Nothing took it out until I tried this. I was thrilled to say the least!
My youngest is 15 months now but when I brought down all those tubs of clothes when he was a newborn I could not believe all of those yellow stains that appeared out of nowhere. I did do a normal wash and hang in the sun, but to no avail. I never thought of an Oxiclean soak – brilliant! Great tip, thanks for sharing it. I only wish I knew this a year ago.
I'm so glad I saw this, I just bought a bunch of new bibs because the others were covered with stains and looked awful. Worked like a charm.
And thankfully I still have the tags and receipt for the new bibs.
For non-natural or particularly pesky stains/smells/whatnot, try Rockin' Green's Funk Rock- they are awesome and can get anything out!
I definitely have to try this! It's depressing after spending so much on clothing for the little ones and them only wearing them for a few times before they are essentially ruined! Do you use oxiclean for cloth diapers as well?
So happy this was a help to you Amy Marie, and thank you Amy for the tip
Ashley, I do use oxiclean on my diapers but only a very minuscule amount, nothing like this soak. It is in the cloth diaper detergent recipe here:
http://www.theecofriendlyfamily.com/2009/08/cloth-diaper-detergent.html