Laundry Pre-Treatment: Amaze by Sunlight

I've been trying to determine which laundry pre-treatments work best on which type of stains. My latest trial was a product called Amaze by Sunlight.

For the most part Amaze was great; however, my daughter went to play in the garden on a damp day and got mud all over the bottoms of her pants. I followed the directions on the box, but there were still some mud stains on her pants. To be fair, it would not have mattered which laundry pre-treatment I used. Based on experience, mud is difficult to remove. I'm on my third wash of the pants.

To remove fresh baby spit up stains, Amaze worked well. I found that I could use the soak feature on my washing machine to soak the baby clothes for 15-20 minutes before adding the detergent and the color safe bleach. Again, most of the stains came out; however, the carrot stains were most difficult.

Bottom line, as of this writing I do not believe that there is a laundry pre-treatment product that will remove 100% of stains 100% of the time. Some stains require Mom to put some elbow grease on them.

Baby Spit Up Stains

I've tried many products to remove stains when baby starts to eat solids. Those carrots, sweet potatos, and bananas can be a pain to remove, not to mention what comes out the other end.

The best way I've found to date is by using Spray and Wash Dual Power. After removing the excess, I pretreat the stains--it is best to completely saturate the stain with Spray and Wash and let it wait a few minutes before putting the garment in the machine. Next I wash as usual. Most times, this works fine; however, some of the stains are really stubborn. When this happens, I do not dry the garment for fear of "cooking" the stain. Instead I reapply Spray and Wash and will rub the liquid in the stain and rub. Be careful because this chemical is an irritant and will burn your hands. Wash your hands with copious amounts of water afterwards to avoid the burning sensation.

If after the second application of Spray and Wash the stain is still there, you can saturate the stain with Spray and Wash and let it dry in the fabric if the fabric is white or colorfast. I tried this on my daughter's lime green t-shirt and where I Spray and Wash went, the color was a bit faded. It didn't matter though because this was a daycare shirt.

Laundry Stains: Grease

How to remove grease from clothes:

1. Sponge off/wipe off excess grease
2. Apply WD40, yes that lubricant found in your garage, on the stain. Let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Apply your favorite dish washing detergent (in my case Sunlight) to the stain.
4. Wash clothes on the hottest setting for the fabric and dry

If the stain is still there, try the process again. This worked for me many times even after I had missed the spot and put the clothes in the dryer. I had thought I had "cooked" the stain, but this process worked.