Can Boil Washes Be Harmful?

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pulsator

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I have a friend who plays a lot of tennis and has a ton of white t-shirts (well, used to be white) that are covered in sweat stains. The stains drive him crazy and I wanna help, but I don't know if a boil wash can be harmful. They are regular cotton shirts that he has worn for years but they have prints on them. Some of these shirts are his absolute favorite and he'd be heart broken if the prints began to peel off. Would a boil wash be harmful to these prints? Also, is there anything special I should do to the stains if I do end up washing them besides a Tablespoon of Persil and half a tablespoon of STPP?
Thanks!
Jamie
 
"Peel" off? Are they some sort of plastic? If so, then yes, one shouldn't launder that at very high temperatures.

OTHO if one is speaking of embroidery on white shirt that has been laundered already, it should be colourfast and can take hot or very hot water. I'd stick to 160F or 180F to be on the safe side. Better yet run a test wash with similar shirt your friend does not hold so dear, it really is the only way to know.

L.
 
if the shirts are silkscreened... dont boil.

by sweat stains do you mean antiperspirant stains perhaps?
 
Against sweat-stains usually an ammonia solution (one tablespoon full in a cup of cold water - and open the window!) should help when applied before the wash with a sponge onto the stains and/or some tablespoons full added to the wash-water, too!
Boil-wash is difficult with colourful embroideries!! They might bleed and or loose colour and brightness.
Usually boiling is good for plain white items made from cotton and/or linnen!

Ralf
 
I don't know if they are available in your area, but CARBONA, the company that used to market carbon tetrachloride for spot removal had a stain remover display in some stores near the detergents a while back. Now you might have to look for it online. They were these little plastic bottles with various potions for removing the type of stain listed on the label, such as fruit juice, clay, etc. There is probably something there for the stains you mention, but the thing that makes perspiration stains difficult to remove is that usually they also have antiperspirant mixed in that was washed into the shirt by the perspiration. Getting the detergent solution past the water repelling mineral salts is the reason why STPP is so good for this type of cleaning. You might try putting each shirt on a flat surface like a half size sheet cake pan so there are sides to hold some water, but do not use a good one for this. Raise the decorative portion on something like a couple of 2 liter soda bottles. Wet the stained area with water then sprinkle a generous amount of STPP and Persil on the stained areas. Use a dripping wet gentle brush to scrub the powders into the fabric. Wear gloves and keep the area being treated wet. Cover the area with plastic and let it sit and keep checking and scrubbing until you see improvement. If you have a rack that you can place over a sink, a dishwasher rack you can turn upside down in the tub or if you can place the item where water can drain through the fabric, you can pour boiling water through the stained area to rinse without harming the decoration. Treating each shirt by hand is going to be a lot more work than just throwing the shirts into a boil wash and you are going to use as much Persil and STPP for each shirt as you were planning to use for the whole load. Even if you could put them through a boil wash, you would need to use more STPP and detergent in the washer to attack the buildup in the shirts. Are they almost stiff in the stained areas? It seems like they could be. I'd check the collars, too. They probably have an oily buildup if these shirts have been so poorly cleaned over the years.

If this is successful, show the shirt to your friend. Ask if he would like to learn how to restore them and show him what is involved. He can decide if it is worth it to him to do it himself or pay you to spend a lot of time and energy doing it. Other than doing this for my own clothes, I would do maybe one for a family member or very good friend and let them take up the task, if they wished.
 
Jamie -

A temperature of around 60*C should get rid of any tough stains, though to be honest I still get good results at temperatures as low as 40*C even on really grubby whites. Boilwashing is only really useful for extra sanitising over the 60*C temperatures, performance wise there is little to no difference.

A 40-60*C wash combined with a good dose of your German Persil should give you fabulous results!

Hope this helps!

Jon
 
Those aren't 'sweat' they're caused by a reaction between certain antiperspirants and the optical brighteners used in laundry detergents. It turns the stain a rather ugly shade of yellow.

To remove them, soak the clothes in a warm solution of high quality enzyme based detergent e.g. Persil overnight.

Then run a long 40C wash and plenty of rinsing.

Should remove the stains very effectively.

A good biological detergent with oxygen based bleaching action would be the best:
Persil (German or UK) powder only.
Ariel (European) powder only.

I don't know which US powders have oxygen bleach, but if you can't source one Ecover's Biological detergent contains powerful enzymes, oxygen bleaching agents and actually produces excellent results.
It has hardly any smell / very light natural fragrance.

Very hot washes should *only* be used on dyed or undyed colourfast cottons i.e. bed linen, towels etc.

It's not advisable to boil-wash most clothes as they may contain synthetic components e.g. thread used in seams, collar stiffeners, linings etc that will shrink badly once heated above 60C.

In general, normal clothes should only be washed at 40C.

Anything with any printed on designs shouldn't be washed above 40C as the design will shrink and you'll end up with a total mess.

The rule is : if it can't withstand a very hot ironing, or a very hot tumble dry DO NOT boil wash.

Also it *must* be cotton or linen.

Pretty much anything else can be very effectively cleaned through the process mentioned above.

If you have a miele or similar:
Select cottons, 40C, and add : Soak and Prewash.
Add good biological universal detergent like Persil/Ariel to both and [II] sections of the dispenser drawer and your favourite fabric conditioner.

Push start and forget about it. It will take hours, but the results are spectacular!
 
Have to add my voice to the above post in agreeing that "boil washing" really isn't required these days, other than for sanitising. Use a good TOL HE detergent such as Persil, with or add on its own percarbonate bleach and one has great results with temps as low as 40C to 60C.

Few if anything made today can withstand repeated 140F washing much less temps < 140F. Perborate bleaches were one of the main reasons behind high temps, as it takes very hot water to achive the same results one can get with percarbonate bleach in cooler water.

Used to launder all whites at 180F or at least 140F, but saw no difference when using 120F, so there we are. With power prices becoming so dear, anything to save electricity that does not compromise results, gets my vote.

L.
 
And then there are old stick-in-the-mud types like me who still insist on dosing white loads with liquid chlorine bleach to sanitize. Hey, at least I won't have to worry about mold growing in my frontloader, LOL!

I'm line-drying this summer and my neighbor (a retired woman who is also, conveniently, my tax preparer) noted "You sure do have a lot of white stuff!" It hadn't occured to me before; all my bed linens, bath linens, kitchen items, and briefs/T-shirts/short socks are white.

I don't wear black (my predominant winter color) in the summer, so I generally only do one load of colors a week. The other five or six are all-white loads.

I must admit a clothesline full of gleaming whites looks pretty cool waving in the breeze...
 
Just test it, Jamie!

I also tested all with my Laundry, I teached washing myself.
I always put T-Shirts etc. with print in the boilwash, it doen´t mind and doesn´t do any damage at your Laundry.
But only boil theses T-shirts, which are made out of 100% cotton.
T-Shirts made out of Polyester wash at 60°C, warm.
 
antipersperants, bleach, sttp

I think it is kinda self-defeating to use an antiperspirant and then go out and play tennis. You need to sweat and lose that body heat in order to maintain effectiveness. You can and should take a shower afterwards.
The boil/non-boil question has pretty much been resolved for me by the low-temperature oxygen bleaches. One thing to be aware of in using German detergents; we frequently have a third enzyme which I have never seen in the US: a "cellulase". If you use a detergent with that and really hot water and scrub vigorously, you will not only get those salts out...but you will damage the fibers. Sttp and hot water together with a good oxygen bleach would be much safer.
 
Celluase is found in many Amercian laundry detergents. Proctor and Gamble uses it in much of their TOL and MOL detergents such as Tide. In fact Tide has several patents based upon various celluase formulas, IIRC.

Celluase is used to "eat" off the fuzz and pills from cotton textiles to keep them looking "like new". It also helps to brighten and keep cotton textiles bright.

L.
 
Laundress,

You know everything about Laundry. Gosh!
I've never seen that enzyme in the US, but pretty much only buy hypo-allergenic, non-enyzme, non-effective detergents when there...
I avoid it over here whenever I can; I know the idea sounds good, but I've read too many horror stories from folks who say good clothes eaten up in a short time.
 
There's that kind of enzyme (cellulase) in every modern washing powder (ARIEL, PERSIL, etc.) here - especially in detergents for coloured items/black washing and liquid detergents. They do not eat up the textiles as the concentration is too low to attack sound fibres. Only those tiny little bits that stick up from the fibre surface and which appear as a roughen up due to normal wash, wear and especially tumbling dry.

Ralf
 
It is hard to tell what is in Amercian cleaning products in general since unlike the EU, there are no mandatory ingredient disclosure laws. However since enzymes are considered a potentially dangerous and allergic chemical they must be disclosed on MSDS, which is always my first place to look.

L.
 
clever

Ah, so, yes, that is a good tip, thanks Laundress.
Ralf, I am sure you are right, but have a few friends who insist their cottons got eaten much faster with this enzyme.
I don't know; I use amalyse and protease separately when I need them.
Which, thank goodness, is not often.
Will change when I see my cat in a few days!
 
Well maybe that in American wash-powders there are higher concentrations of those enzymes...??

In Germany we have these in our detergents for about 10-15 years and I cannot find any difference in durability of textiles. For example: my mate uses to buy HOM and other high quality t-shirts, which are quite expensive, and the oldest of them are 14-15 years old now and have been washed hundred times since then and also with these enzymes for minimumly 10-12 years. Now some of them are going in pieces - but imagine!

Ralf
 
enzyme (cellulase)

It's certainly not in Unilever Persil Bio:

Protease
Amylase
Lipase

There's no lipase in the S&M liquid.

Ariel:
Glycosidase
Protease

That would indicate to me that Persil Bio is actually quite likely to be better at removing oils and fats.

There's no cellulase in any UK/Ireland detergent that I could find

Checked : Unilever's products, P&G
 
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