My Hero - a Repost

See note at bottom : ) *

No, I'm not talking about my Sound Man. Although he does fit that description. No, I'm talking about a dish detergent. No, I haven't lost my mind. And no, I'm not even talking about doing dishes.

See, one lovely day last year my Kiddo forgot to tell me that he had placed crayons in his leg pockets. The pockets that I didn't check before putting the pair of pants in the washer and subsequently the dryer. Oh, what a mess. All over my dryer as well as my clothes, was red crayon. Melted, waxy, red crayon. I cried. I wailed. I Googled. Yes, I put in "How do I get red crayon out of clothes?" or something along those lines. It said anything from WD-40 to Borax, but the one thing I had on hand was Dawn dishwashing liquid. Enter my Hero.

I used Dawn on those awful red crayon spots, washed the clothes again, and you know what? It worked. Dawn dishwashing liquid got out dryer-melted red crayon from my clothes! So, I figured, hey, it might work on all my grease spots. Nothing I've ever used before has worked, so what do I have to lose? And guess what? (you probably know where this is going, don't you?) It has worked. Every. Single. Time. Even clothes that I had put in the dry cleaning bag that had sat for months came grease-spot clean. Here, let me show you.

Here's Kiddo's shirt with two greasy stains on it. It has already been washed AND dried. I used to think, "Well, this shirt's done for!" But now I know better. See the grease stain on the shoulder and the one on the tummy? Here's a closeup on the shoulder:

Now, all I do when I find one of these stains is pull out the old Dawn liquid. It can either be the original or ultra, they both work the same.

And here's the shirt after washing.

Now, because I believe in full disclosure, let me say that this was with two washings. It was movie butter popcorn that made those stains. I had some on my jeans that required two washings, too. Man, whatever they use for that popcorn is scary industrial grease. Makes me wonder if I will ever order butter popcorn anymore, for sure.I have wanted to write Dawn and tell them what a miracle product they have in the hope that they'd send me a lifetime supply of the stuff, but that's probably not going to happen. Oh, well, I'll just let this little blog post suffice.

So, if you've got some greasy stains you've been putting off trying to get clean, try putting some Dawn on it (regular dish liquid might work too, but I've only tried Dawn). I really scrub it in the spot, then I leave it on for a LONG time. Like overnight. If not, it might need another washing to get it out. If the first try isn't completely successful, keep trying. Dawn has given me back many of my shirts that I had forgotten about in the abyss of the dry-cleaning bag.

Yes, Dawn is truly my Hero. At least for my laundry, where I need all the heros I can get. Whatever that means.

*This is a repost from 2009, but since it was just featured at Mom's Toolbox the other day, it's been on my mind. I also wanted to link it to The Stories of A to Z's Tutorials & Tips Tuesday as well as Holly's Tuesdays Tips and Tricks.