Your laundry basket can be a real challenge to clean because between mud-soaked kids’ clothes, sweaty gym clothes, and dull fabrics, your detergent can struggle. However, instead of reaching for bleach to get your laundry whiter, you can turn to natural, eco-friendly products to get the job done.
Revive yellowed fabric, remove stains and dirt while restoring shine to linen , this is the natural “know-how” of environmentally friendly natural products such as baking soda, among others.
jar of baking soda
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Baking soda bottle – Source: spm
How to whiten clothes with baking soda?
For those who don’t want to risk using the whitening power of bleach, baking soda is a great alternative due to its natural ability to whiten clothes . While it is most often recognized as having a deodorizing power, baking soda can make all the difference and enhance the cleaning effect of your detergent.
Therefore, this multi-purpose household powder is able to gently clean clothes while acting on bad odors and tough stains. In addition, it helps keep the washing machine clean while acting as a good substitute for fabric softener.
To take advantage of it this way, add half a cup of baking soda to your detergent and proceed with your normal wash. If you have a large load of laundry, add a cup of baking soda.
Other ecological and natural ways to whiten clothes
Since it’s unlikely your cupboards only contain baking soda, it’s a safe bet that you’ll also have one of the following ingredients. This is a good thing because they are excellent natural whiteners that rise to the top of Grandma’s cleaning basket.
Whitening clothes with lemon
lemon juice whitening
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Lemon juice – Source: spm
Pour 1 to 2 cups of lemon juice into a bowl of hot water. Soak your white clothes in it and let them sit for 2 hours. Then proceed to machine wash. If you want to further ensure its effectiveness, you can soak the cloth in boiling water and wait for the lemon to work overnight. The next day, all you have to do is let your white clothes dry in the sun.
Whitening clothes with white vinegar
White vinegar is not only very effective as a bleaching agent but also as an air freshener . Ideal for fabrics prone to mildew. To use as a bleach, pour 1/4 cup into the fabric softener drawer during the final rinse cycle.
Bleaching clothes with hydrogen peroxide
hydrogen peroxide
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Hydrogen peroxide – Source: spm
For clothes that are whiter than white, you have another ingredient that works as an excellent bleaching agent while targeting tough stains: hydrogen peroxide. Simply pour a cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide into the detergent drawer and then run the regular wash cycle. Peroxide is also the resourceful’s ally because it allows for several ingenious uses.
Whiten clothes prone to stubborn stains with the combination of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide
We’re thinking of yellow stains, grease stains, or even oil stains and sweat marks. In this case, make a homogeneous mixture of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda and then apply the resulting paste directly to the stains in question . Let the mixture act for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Remove excess product with a clean, used toothbrush before placing the garment in the washing machine.
Bleach clothes with a concentrated product
Are you dealing with particularly dirty white clothes that seem almost beyond repair? No matter, because the above-mentioned products can very well go together and act in tandem for an even more uplifting result . To do so, prepare a large container in which you will mix the following quantities: ½ cup of baking soda, 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide, ¼ cup of lemon juice and 6 cups of water. Keep in mind that the less water, the more concentrated solution you will have. Choose your dosage according to your needs.
Soak your white clothes in the concentrated mixture for a few hours , then finish with a thorough rinse with water and put them in the washing machine.