Get Your Laundry Whites Whiter than White

I had a favorite white camisole for about a year. I wore it with many of my outfits and it quickly became a staple in my wardrobe. Imagine my dismay then when I realized that my white camisole was looking more grayish-blue than white, more dingy than sophisticated and clean cut. There's nothing quite like a bright white shirt, blouse, or camisole; sometimes the whiteness of a piece of clothing can set off your entire outfit. Conversely, a dingy white anything could seriously damage your look. The key then is to wash your whites so they exceed the limits of whiteness!

One of the biggest keys to remember is to wash your whites on a regular basis. Especially when it comes to perspiration stains, you want to eliminate those as soon as possible and prevent them from ever setting in. If you wash them often and use a stain treatment on the underarms (or anywhere else where yellowing might occur) then you'll be leaps and bounds ahead of the dreaded yellow arm pit stain.

Another tactic to use when preventing yellowing is to add half a cup of baking soda, a time-tested whitening agent, to a regular wash load to give your bleach a boost. With this method you'll want to reduce the amount of bleach you use by half.

One of the other time-proven methods is to use Cascade or other dish detergent in your laundry loads. Combine dish detergent with Calgon water softener, and Borax to create an effective whitening tool. Put in a half cup of the liquid products and a quarter cup of the Calgon and Borax, add to hot water, let them dissolve completely, and you'll have a tried-and-true solution for whitening your whites beyond their imagined potential!

You can even make white socks dazzlingly clean. Even dingy sweat socks come out white when you soak them in a solution of a half cup lemon juice or two tablespoons automatic dishwasher detergent in a gallon of super-hot water. Soak for thirty minutes, or overnight if they are very dirty.

There are multiple effective ways of whitening your whites and preserving the brightness of your whites. White is an essential color in any wardrobe, whether that be a casual or professional one, and you need to make sure you're looking as sharp as you can!