How to Get Your Whites Back to White

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THE IDEA:

• Get rid of armpit stains

THE CLAIM:

• Using a mix of Dawn and hydrogen peroxide to get well worn whites back to their former bright white glory

THE RESULT:

• SUCCESS!

If you've ever had to toss a favorite shirt that was in decent condition aside from a couple annoying armpit stains, you'll be pleased to know you may not have to do that with your next shirt! I had a feeling that mixing dawn and peroxide might actually do the trick on dingy armpit stains, especially when amped up by baking soda which is what the original pinner did so I did as well! What I didn't anticipate is how well it would work on old, seemingly set in stains! I tested the pin on several different articles of clothing and admittedly there were a couple shirts, my husband's Element tee below being one of them, that needed to be treated twice. However, that t-shirt is ancient so the fact that the mix worked at all is still a success in my book even if I did have to go through the process twice. Honestly, doing it twice wasn't because it didn't work at all. It was simply so I could say that I brought the tee "back to white". The stain was mostly removed after the first treatment and the very slight amount of dingy remnant was completely unnoticeable when worn.

Hubby's Element Tee: BEFORE

 

Hubby's Element Tee: AFTER
 

My Basic 3/4 Sleeve Tee: BEFORE
 

My 3/4 Sleeve Basic Tee: AFTER

I thought I'd try working out the pit stains on a colored shirt so I chose one of Hubby's old sky blue Hurley tees. Can't even tell there was ever an armpit stain at all can ya?

Another Hubby Tee in blue: AFTER

Dawn + Hydrogen Peroxide + Baking Soda= Successful stain remover and bleach alternative!

SUCCESS!!

Natural Wood Stain- Part 2

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At the end of part 1 of this experiment, I was sure this was going to be another big fat FAIL. On day 7, the vinegar in the jars weren't changing color anymore than they had on day 2. Vinegar and steel wool alone was supposed to produce a reddish hue.


Ummm, yeah.. am I color blind or is this no where near any version of red at all?

The tea stain color was just supposed to give off an obvious tea colored shade and the coffee was the same (only it was supposed to present with black not dark brown.) The pennies and vinegar mix was supposed to reveal a pale Caribbean blue stain.


Ironically, it seems like if anything the pennies are more likely to give off the reddish hue and the steel wool is looking more like it could present with a Caribbean blue kind of color!

These are the results after 24 hours:

From left to right: Steel wool, steel wool/coffee, steel wool/tea, pennies and vinegar

I waited a full week, per the pin-structions! In my mind the natural wood stain idea was a failure already but alas an interesting turn of events happened that day. I liberally applied each each stain in sections to an unfinished piece of pine wood board. I left it alone for a few minutes and came back to see if there were any noticeable pigments. In the photo below it was just one heavy coat of each stain in the process of drying.

First coat- Left to right: Steel wool, tea, pennies, coffee

At this point, there wasn't anything too impressive going on. The steel wool stain wasn't looking reddish at all, but instead more of what I'd describe as a dark green tea type of color. The tea stain (which was actually an herbal green tea blend) looked very similar to the steel wool only stain. The pennies honestly just looked like wet board. There really was no color to it and I just assumed that once it fully dried it wouldn't show much color at all. The coffee stain did in fact come out the darkest, appearing pale black as it was supposed to.

Second coat- Left to right: Steel wool, tea, pennies, coffee

I tried to get a good picture but it was overcast and I don't have the greatest camera in the world (someday!) so we'll try to work with this. The tea and coffee remained the same shade just darker. The steel wool did begin to show a bit of red when compared with the tea, but definitely not enough for me to call it a "reddish" stain color. Now the pennies surprised me a bit and this is the one where the picture just doesn't do it justice. The penny stain actually did have a slight blue tint to it. The color that's there, while it does just seem like a darkened wet spot is actually a blueish wet spot. I definitely didn't see that happening based on what was sitting in the jar!

About 20 minutes later I noticed the colors in the jar had changed. It would seem that once each stain was exposed to the air, all the ingredients started to work together to do what they were supposed to! 

Check out the progression of the steel wool only stain:

The steel wool only stain is on the left.

Below you can see what they all looked like in the end. You can see the darkened effect after the stains have fully oxidized and shaken up a bit. The steel wool only stain just looks muddy instead of reddish but it still showed reddish when applied to the wood.

The point is, though, that... It worked! See below how the colors totally changed from the initial coat?! I applied 2 coats of each stain after they had oxidized which makes 3 total coats. The skinny sections to the right are 1 heavy coat each because I was interested to see what 1 single coat would have looked like had I known how air exposure would effect the color of each stain!

A couple interesting things to note: The pennies did in fact present with a "pale Caribbean blue" type of hue, but it was so pale that you'd likely need way too many coats to make it worth your while. On the far right of the board are just the tea and coffee stains alone with no steel wool. Clearly, steel wool is the way to go if you want sufficient pigment! 

So there you have it! The natural wood stain using a steel object soaked in vinegar was a SUCCESS! Steel wool gave the best, most reliable result. Me, personally, I'd skip the pennies all together and I definitely wouldn't waste my time using only tea or only coffee. But if you'd like to play around with a fun, non toxic stain option that actually works. Give it a try. Just make sure you let that stuff breathe a little!



Fix Dents In Wood

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THE IDEA:

• Minimize or remove dents in wood floors and/or furniture

THE CLAIM:

• Using an iron and a damp cloth you can steam out a dent within just a few minutes

THE RESULT:

• SUCCESS!

To test this idea I made a few dents in an unfinished wood shelf I had never actually put up. I made 3 separate dents trying to keep them at varying degrees of depth. I just used a cheap wash rag I had lying around and our crappy old iron. I started out with just a mildly damp rag but after a few passes I realized that it needed to be thoroughly damp, almost wet for this to really work.

This is the first dent and the most shallow.

This is the 2nd dent which was the deepest.

And this was the 3rd which ended up with a chip I ended up picking out of the middle but otherwise the depth of the dent was between the other two.

I took my wash rag, wet it, and dripped water over each dent completely covering them.

The instructions said to turn the iron temperature on high and press in circular motions, making sure to create enough steam.

Plenty of steam!

These are the results for Dent #1. For this dent the results were quite impressive. The dent came up completely only leaving a slight mark showing where the dent originally was.

Where's the dent? Can you tell where it was? The remnants of it are technically there but it came up so well that it's barely visible!

Just for the sake of showing how well it worked. I grabbed a 120 grit sanding sponge I had been using for a different project and spent about 15 seconds sanding out the little mark that was left.

I tried to show an angle where you could see how there's no indentation in the wood here.

And now the results of Dent #2! This one was the deepest one so while it did improve, it didn't take the dent away completely. I honestly wasn't really expecting it to because the implication from the description of the pin was that this method would work on more minor dents.

Finally, Dent #3. This one also came out completely. The section in the middle was the chip so if you'll notice, everything around it is no longer indented.

So, overall it seems this method would work quite well for a dent in your hardwood, coffee table, or whatever other wood furniture you have with minor dents in it. Not gonna lie, after this worked out so well I started going around my house with that damp rag leaving wafts of steam everywhere I went!

Natural Wood Stain- Part 1

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THE IDEA:

• Homemade wood stain using vinegar

THE CLAIM:

• Steeping a metal object in vinegar will produce enough pigment to stain wood, as will brewed coffee and tea

THE RESULT:

• SUCCESS!

According to the pin I found, all you need is real steel wool and vinegar. You can use either white distilled vinegar or apple cider vinegar. Since I had plently of white distilled vinegar, I went with that. The idea is that varying metal objects will create different hues when mixed with the vinegar. The pin in question stated that steel wool alone would create a "rich reddish hue", a handful of pennies mixed with vinegar would create a "pale caribbean blue" shade, and a combination of tea and a metal object (I just used steel wool again) would create a black stain. For the vinegar based stains the instructions recommend leaving the stain in a glass container for a week for full results. So for part 1, we will just be looking at what happened on Day 1.

Allegedly, an important step to getting a good stain with the quickest results is to wash the oils off the steel wool before mixing it with the vingear. *Tip: Use gloves when doing this step. You'll notice I didn't and the fine strands of the steel wool were a tad bit sharp and irritating to my fingers.

As I was making the stains I realized LATER that the pin listed coffee and tea separately from the vinegar. All my stains in the photos below... have vinegar. So in part 2 of this review, I'll be adding the separate coffee and tea stains since those don't require any wait time. It may be interesting to see if the vinegar has any unique effects to each.

As you can see after only a few minutes both the tea (2nd one in) and the coffee (3rd one in) have already started changing color. *Side note: For the coffee, I emptied a tea bag and refilled it with coffee grounds.

After a 20 minute time lapse:

                      Steel Wool Only                             Pennies Only



              Steel Wool and Coffee Bag         Steel Wool and Tea Bag

After an hour the jar with steel wool only and the jar with pennies only has no change.

24 hours later:

So far no color change for the steel wool and the pennies. We'll see what happens in a week!

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Remove Ink Stains on Clothes

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THE IDEA:

• A simple spot remover using hand sanitizer

THE CLAIM:

• Prep the stain by soaking the inked area with clear hand sanitizer for 10 minutes, then wash as usual.

THE RESULT:

• SUCCESS! Well Kinda...

I tested 4 different types of pens: ball point, felt tip, gel, and a highlighter. This was definitely one of those pins that I anticipated getting unimpressive results with, but I was a bit suprised in the end.

I grabbed one of my Hub's old softball tourney tees (the ugliest one I could find! How'd I do??) and went to work marking it up. Since the pin was quite generalized saying simply " remove ink" I figured I'd go with all the kinds I had in my desk.

Next, I applied a liberal amount of hand sanitizer to each marking on the shirt... a VERY liberal amount. I wanted to make sure to get full coverage and make sure each spot was fully saturated. I left it on for 10 minutes exactly and washed as usual.

And here are the results!

As you can see the gel pen and highlighter marks were removed completely without a trace! The ball point and felt tip? Not so much! The felt tip was the least affected by the hand sanitzier, though the ball point was not far behind. So there you have it! Based on what type of ink is on your shirt this could really be considered a success OR a failure so you can decide how to grade this one!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next review!