Laundry help - how to simplify, but still get stains out?

[Anonymous]

I have two boys that are super hard on clothes, with lots of stains. I'm dropping a lot of balls in general and need to hand over responsibilities to other people. We have an au pair that helps wash the kids clothes, but can't seem to follow my (admittedly rather involved) stain treating process.

What works for you? The older boy is capable of doing more of his laundry too, but I need products/processes that work without a lot of steps.

We have a top loading SpeedQueen washing machine that I love, and have been using Charlie's detergent, which I like because it is unscented, but it doesn't seem to do much for anything that's stained at all... Is there a better (unscented) detergent? I know you're supposed to treat different stains with different products, but do you have a first-stop go to that works on more things than not?

[Anonymous]

Use tide unscented and use a laundry booster like Oxy. But the biggest thing I’ve found that helps is just washing stains while they are fresh (less than 24 hours old.) Just have the AU pair do a load a day with tide and oxy.

[Anonymous]

I have found this stuff to do a really good job on stains - https://www.amazon.com/Grandmas-Secret-Remover-Laundry-Spray/dp/B084WKK9QD/ref=pd_lpo_1?pd_rd_i=B084WKK9QD&psc=1

We use Tide Free and sometimes Oxy.

[Anonymous]

you can spray stains with "boosting" products such as Oxy Clean, Shout Advanced, etc. several days before you do laundry. I do this.

If it's grass, I rub liquid detergent on the spot before I do laundry.

[Anonymous]

Keep a bucket with water and Oxyclean in house laundry room. Stained clothes go in the bucket. When it’s time to do laundry, add the soaked clothes to the load. The stains should come out, but check them before putting them in the dryer. If they don’t, repeat the process until the stains are gone.

[Anonymous]

I’m a farm kid. We had 3 hampers in our laundry room: nice stuff, everyday stuff, stained stuff. Nice and everyday we’re easy to wash. Stained got dealt with on Saturdays. Could you have you au pair handle all the normal clothes and you deal with the stained since you have a process?

Alternatively, baking soda takes out grease and oxyclean does well enough on the rest.

[Anonymous]

Laundry that's stained gets tied in a knot before it goes in the hamper. When all the laundry gets sorted, the knotted stuff goes into a pile. Each week, I either do dark or light stained clothes (you do need to separate by color for this). Goes in a sink with the hottest possible tap water and a half a scoop of OxyClean powder. Let soak 4-10 hours (based on my own convenience/schedule). Then it goes right into the regular wash with regular detergent (we just use whatever is cheapest). This works on the vast majority of stuff. If it comes out stained after that, it goes in the garbage.

ONLY EXCEPTION: Blood. It's rare, but if you've got something stained with blood, it needs the same process but with COLD water (never use hot water with blood). So those get pulled out separately, but that's super rare - never happens to my husband, rarely to my kids (once ever? but none get their periods yet, they're still little) so it's usually my stuff from periods, even that is pretty rare, and honestly, I only bother if it's something I really like.

[Anonymous]

I use Shout stain stick on any stains as soon as I see them, then wash with the regular wash and it seems to work. We use Tide unscented.

[Anonymous]

Give each kid a spray bottle of OxiClean/Shout/Spray n' Wash and tell them to spray the stains when they put the clothes in the hamper.
Wash everything on warm.
If anything is still stained when it comes out of the washer, spray it again, and run it through the wash again.

Be prepared to live with some stains, but you will get 90% of them with very little effort.

[Anonymous]

We have 3 teen boys that spend most of their time outdoors. 2 of the boys also get bloody noses on a regular basis. This means we have a lot of stains. We keep a bottle of Oxy clean spray next to each hamper. Stains get sprayed when the clothes come off. We use the powdered Arm and Hammer laundry soap/ The light load also gets a scoop of powdered Oxy clean. Our boys do their own laundry and other than the stain spray don't pay any attention to the clothes. This system takes care of 95% of the stains they seem to get.

Just in case it helps anyone else- Oxy clean spray also works wonders on blood stains on grout. Spray it then give a scrub with an old toothbrush. Wipe it up with a wet rag.

[Anonymous]

Stop being ocd. Give the kids play clothes that can have stains. Teach your older kids to get out their own strains. Teach your younger kids to be neater.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stop being ocd. Give the kids play clothes that can have stains. Teach your older kids to get out their own strains. Teach your younger kids to be neater.

"Give them play clothes" but "teach them to be neater"

How about we let them be kids with the clothes they have but take care of them so clothes can be worn longer or passed on to other kids? There's nothing wrong with wanting to have stain-free clothes, which is both less wasteful and less costly in the long run. OP is working on "teaching older kids to get out their own stains," as referenced in the original post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a farm kid. We had 3 hampers in our laundry room: nice stuff, everyday stuff, stained stuff. Nice and everyday we’re easy to wash. Stained got dealt with on Saturdays. Could you have you au pair handle all the normal clothes and you deal with the stained since you have a process?

Alternatively, baking soda takes out grease and oxyclean does well enough on the rest.

OP here, that's kind of what I've been doing, letting the au pair put aside stuff for me to deal with, but it ends up being half their clothes some weeks!

Baking soda on grease - do you just make a paste and rub it on? Do you have to let it sit for a bit before washing?

[Anonymous]

OP again, thanks all - I think we'll try to spray/treat stains when clothes come off and see if that will do the trick, or at least cut down the effort involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Give each kid a spray bottle of OxiClean/Shout/Spray n' Wash and tell them to spray the stains when they put the clothes in the hamper.
Wash everything on warm.
If anything is still stained when it comes out of the washer, spray it again, and run it through the wash again.

Be prepared to live with some stains, but you will get 90% of them with very little effort.

We do this but use an all natural product. If the stain doesn't come out in the wash, I dry it in the sun and that almost always takes care of it. If it doesn't I repeat the treatment and wash.