While visiting my daughter last week, I discovered a trick for getting crayon from clothes. I'd like to pass it on to moms who find out the hard way that crayons in a dryer can ruin a whole load of clothes.The toddler had left one in a pants pocket. Immediately she soaked the clothes in Clorox 2 and left them overnight. However this still didn't get it all out.
My sister told me to use WD 40 on the crayon spots by dabbing it on with a sponge and using a paper towel on top of the stain to absorb the color. Let this sit for several minutes. I left it for 15-20 minutes. Then washed the spot using dish washing liquid. I then washed them in the machine (actually, twice) to get the rest of the stain out.
The bright red crayon stains came out of a pale pink sweatshirt that I thought was ruined. Mineral spirits can also be used in place of the WD 40. The only problem I see with this method is that the smell of the WD40 tends to linger in the clothes, but I feel that, with a few washings, it will lose its scent. I bet many a Mom wished she'd heard about this method before now. Clothes are too expensive to lose.
By Sharon from Ravenna, KY
I'd email the Crayola Crayon Company. Look on the back of the box and see who the manufacturer is; they probably already have a website on the box. I'd ask them what to do about this problem.
Good luck. (03/07/2009)
By metroplex
I, like everyone else posting here, had a crayon mishap with the laundry. It was a load of darks with a couple colors mixed in (and a stray white sock) vs. a dark purple crayola crayon. At first I thought the crayon was the victor in the battle of clean stain free laundry. But I found this website via a frantic Google search and found my laundry stain savior.
It didn't completely get the crayon stains out of my favorite shirt. However, it got all the stains out of the rest of the load and even removed set in grease stains that I'd acquired a month or so ago while making dinner while wearing said favorite shirt.
The only "stain" left in the shirt was an oily looking stain on the back/bottom of the shirt, where I think the biggest piece of crayon was sitting. The color was completely dissolved from the stains however, making it far less noticeable than the huge purple marks that were everywhere on the light green shirt. I followed the following recipe with a couple changes due to lack of having the exact ingredients. My changes are in parenthesis.
I've now blogged said recipe for laundry saving and also emailed it to everyone that doesn't read my blog that's in my contact list. Can't keep this laundry saver to myself. Thank you all for your suggestions and posting on how you were able to resolve this issue. You all are life savers, and whomever posted the "recipe" the first time, you rock. Thanks again. (05/02/2009)
By Heidi
Being busy with the holiday weekend prep. I threw a load of "good" jeans, not our work pants, not our play pants of course, but our "good" jeans into the washer without checking the pockets. After the cycle was complete, I quickly tossed them over into the dryer, popped it on and walked away.
I washed the jeans on "Heavy" cycle in warm water. I did this twice just for good measure. It was a success. Thank you everyone for so many good ideas. (05/21/2009)
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