Don’t Wear White After Labor Day…

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… And if you’re a baby it’s best to just avoid white all year long.  Why are there so many cute white baby outfits?  Better question, why to do they even make white baby clothes?  If you put a baby, or any child for that matter, in a white outfit it’s almost guaranteed to end up stained.

Nick is almost one year old, and I feel like all I have done for the last twelve months is bleach his clothes!  I honestly have been working on getting out stains from his clothes from the second day of his life.  I had put him in this adorable puppy sleeper to come home in.  The outfit had colored paw prints on it, and the edges were brown, but most of the material was a light cream.  We had hardly driven away from the hospital when he spit up all over it!  As soon as we got home I had to change his clothes because I wanted to use his coming home outfit for his newborn pictures, so I had to get the stain out right away.

From that day on I have been bleaching clothes.  If I had one week during the last year that I didn’t need to bleach something it was a miracle (I think it did happen once).  First it was spit up stains and then we added baby food stains, and those can be really tough to get out.  I’m sure I’ll soon be adding dirt and grass stains to the list.  Amazingly though I have been able to get out every stain that Nick has created.

What is my stain fighting secret?  I use Vivid.  I know this is going to sound like a corny commercial, but my mother used it when I was a kid and now I use it.  It is a color safe bleach, and it does an amazing job.  I put some of it into my washtub and then add cold water.  Before I put any of the stained clothes into the tub I get the stained area wet.  The I pour Vivid on the stain and rub it in (scrubbing the material with the material).  Then I put the stained outfit into the washtub and let it sit until the correct laundry load (white, color, etc.)  Sometimes the stain soaks over night, other times it soaks for a whole week.  It works either way.  Every once in awhile I’ll get a really tough stain that doesn’t want to fully come out.  When that’s the case I use a Clorox 2 Stain Fighting Pen (the one that’s safe for colors).  These two products have kept Nick’s clothes from being ruined by the many stains.

Sadly for me I know the days of bleaching Nick’s clothes are not over, but at least I know I don’t have to worry about stains ruining his clothes.  I still buy some white clothes, but I avoid a lot of them!