whiten whites

[Sweetum]

I have some whites - shirts, tops, pants that have some stains all over them - they're not bad but just not good. Wondering if there's anyway to remove them all. Please share your whitening routine. Use of washer gets more points! Thanks.

[niccig]

Oxi clean soak and then normal wash. Now when I do a load of whites, I throw in some oxiclean as a preventative. Sunning also helps, especially on stains.

[Sweetum]

Thanks, Nicci.

I finally got around to buynig the oxiclean. I bought a tub of powder oxiclean. A few questions:
- Do I just fill a sink/tub with water, put a cup of the powder and throw in my clothes and leave them overnight? Is that the soak method?
- For the preventive method, do I just put oxiclean in the spot for bleach? I have a front loader, HE machine.
- Can I use oxiclean on color (or a mixed load) as well? or will it fade the colors?

Thanks!

[edurnemk]

I also use oxiclean and sunning.

You can soak in a tub with a scoop of Oxiclean. It won't fade colors, I use it all the time. Also you can add a scoop to the washer, not necessarily putting it on the stained spot, since it will dilute in the water and "treat" the whole thing. I have a front loader, so I put the oxiclean directly in the tub, not in the detergent compartment, since mine says "liquid detergent only".

For very stubborn stains: put the item in a tub, sprinkle oxiclean over the stain and then pour boiling hot water on it. Let it sit at least 30 min, and then wash normally.