Getting White Pants Clean

In Texas we have a mixture of everything on the fields. I just spray Tilex on the pants, throw them in the wash with oxy xlean and turn on the hot water. Learned this Tilex trick when my husband played softball and then carried it over to my sons white pants. If you are a catchers mom or dad you learn just how quickly they can get dirty.

I have been coaching a long time and I have tried every combo. possible. The best/easiest thing I have found is....soak them in 'Lever Pro' overnight and send them through the wash as normal. Will get an occasional spot that has to have a little stain remover and sent back through the wash.

For me, it seems that if I get them in the wash as soon as he gets home, they come clean. I always use oxyclean in the wash and felsnaphta (?spelling) on the really dirty areas, blood, before I throw them in.

hsbsblfan ...

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on the really dirty areas, blood,

Glad my son never competed against your son ...

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Originally posted by FutureBack.Mom:
hsbsblfan ...

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on the really dirty areas, blood,

Glad my son never competed against your son ...

Hahahahahaha. I needed that laugh, thanks.

Hahahaha! Thanks, made my day too. I can assure you that it was his own blood, not someone elses.

Yahoo, I finally found Fels Nathpa. I was looking in with the laundry detergent and it was with the bar soap. I am always excited to find something new to clean baseball uniforms with. Now if my sewing skills were better to mend the holes in the pants. I will work on it along with my cooking skills sometime soon. (Baseball season, lots of pizza).

Well, thanks ladies (and a few brave gentlemen)! I have tried the Fels Naptha and am pleasantly surprised. I also use Shout and Tide and wash them in HOT water. My son also gets really dirty (and bloody too sometimes!) and this combo works great on our Mid Missouri dirt.

I just scrub really hard.

THANKS ladies!!!!

My son had a tourney this past weekend and one of the fields had wet red clay. Since my son is not a "passive" player, the previously white uni came home a nice shade of reddish orange. We're not talking about a spot or two either.....ALL down both legs; front, back, seat, sides. We're talking RED / ORANGE. Some on the jersey but not so bad.

So my wife is stressing out on how to get these things somewhat clean again. Here's basically what happened:

1) We get home from the tourney around 11:30 pm or so and I start SCRUBBING them with a brush to get the loose stuff off. This took a good hour or so.

2) Per her instructions, I soak overnight in OxyClean.

3) She sees that did little then takes over and proceeds to rinse then soak in Clorox.

4) Seeing it hardly dented the "stain", she rinses and soaks them again.

5) Still not working she asks another team mom for advice and then adds Lestoil.

6) Still not budging she combines Lestoil AND Clorox...and gags on the fumes enveloping our house.

7) STILL no luck, I remember this weird named soap. So when she calls proclaiming she's about to blow a gasket I say "See if you can find a soap called Fels Naptha". She does and when I get home I open the bar, rub it on the "spot" let it set for the prescribed minute then threw them in the washer for another cycle.

She came running upstairs..."YOU'RE NOT going to believe this but....."

TADA!!! They were sparkling white as if we'd just bought them.

So thanks so much for the help!

And I said I couldn't find Fels Naptha here in town, low and behold I was in the Mast General Store, and there it was!!

So anyone from the Asheville NC area that is still reading and/or looking, there you go!

I haven't had to wash uniforms in awhile, and having pitchers, it really wasn't that bad, but SON will have some summer pants to deal with!

Can you soak pants that are white with blue piping down the sides and around the belt tunnels? Or does it run if you soak it? What about tops, can you soak those as well? Just trying to have a plan of attack when the spring gets here so I can best get my teams laundry done and not stay at school until midnight every game night.

My sons summer league pants had blue piping and I soaked them without a problem. I agree that the Fels Naptha stuff works the best

Brian, I never had any problem soaking pants with a stripe down the side or pin striped pants. I did once soak a travel ball jersey in "iron out" which I had washed in that before. However, soaking the shirt turned it from a gold to a canary yellow which didn't make him very happy!! What was really bad was that he had a teammate staying with us that weekend, so there were two yellow "birdies" on the field! Ooops!!

For some reason, whatever they are made of, the pants always hold up better than the shirts. And I agree that the rubbing with the Fells naptha does a good job.

= Advertising deleted =

Gw, from all your ol' logging days - I am sure Fels Naptha was your best friend, am I right?

And BTW, his shirt clearly states his name is PHIL, I am not sure what PHIL was up to, but he sure looks happy about it.

Went All Natural, eh? How did that work out for ya?
Bet your tighty-whiteys were not all that white...Herbs?? How did they taste would be the more appropriate query?

ESPRO SPORTS CLEANER is the best thing I have ever found to get out grass, red clay, mud, blood, field paint, you name it. Smells great and is environmentally friendly too. Very reasonably priced - sold at Hibbett Sports, Academy Sports and other sporting goods stores.

I'm tremendously embarrassed to be here, but couldn't resist the topic. As a divorced dad, it's on me to get the pants clean, and I've been so successful many moms ask me how I do it. It may be dirt specific, as was previously suggested, but this has worked well for us. Alabama red clay stains, Shout-out or other stain spray, wait the suggested 15-20 minutes, then soaking for two days in the summer sun in a bucket of Iron Out. Finally, Oxyclean and laundry detergent in a mix strong enough that you have to run them through the cycle twice to get the suds out. The Iron Out really is they key, and it smells so bad it can make you nauseous, but it works.
That'll do it!
I'm leaving the forum now!

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"I'm leaving the forum now!"

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Will try the fels naptha-what memories that suggestion brought back. I just lost my mom Mar 18 and she used to swear by fels naptha. I had forgotten about it. It will bring me comfort to try and get those white pants clean with mom's old stand by

My son is a catcher whose white pants had never been white after opening day. That is until I read suggestions on HSBBW to use Iron Out. I use hot water with Iron Out and soak for at least 30 minutes. Then I add OxyClean and Gain detergent. I've even tried it with set in stains and it works! No scrubbing either!

add Cascade dishwashing detergent (powder only) - works great!

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And while you're at it...



...add these too!




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The only problem with iron out is that it may rust your snaps up a little. Of course, that's nothing a little steel-wool and a light coat of WD-40 wont take care of.

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I have to get some of that Iron Out©...my snaps haven't been rusted up in years...not even a little!



Would it help to break a raw egg into it? Free range, of course.

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Someone once told me about this product, Clayzout. It works wonderfully. All you do is mix some Clayzout with water, allow the uniform to soak, scrub any remaining stains with a plastic scouring pad, and launder as normal. I'm telling you it works unbelievably well. I would recommend it it anyone. Check it out at www.clayzout.com

I have a confession. My son does his own laundry. Haven't done his laundry since he was 12 or 13. I haven't even noticed how clean his pants are - maybe that means his pants are clean. But we don't have that real organge clay.

Ok, I feel better having admitted it.

I have tried everything...but just learned of Iron Out this summer. OMG it is fantastic and the ONLY thing I have found to get out the clay from our area. I prewash with detergent, uniform only, to get all the loose dirt out then use ~1/2 C IronOut to the low level water then soak the uniform overnight. (Keep the top of the washer down, it stinks). Then raise the water level to rinse and wash again with detergent (add a few more cloths at this piont if you want.) I typically do a weekend tournament's worth at one time to make it efficient. Wayne, I have more than one child and don't have the luxury to soak for days! Plus, this has convinced me to not get a front loader washing machine until the cleats are hung up!

I have found Fels also works best here in Texas, but if they play after it rains, and Diamond Dry was used to dry the field, its almost impossible to get the red clay out. That stuff dries it out and sets it in. A bleach pen is about the only thing you can use after washing a couple of times. I also agree with not drying.

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This guy doesn't need help getting his white pants clean...he needs help getting them on!




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If you can't find it locally, you can buy Fels-Naptha soap at: http://www.soapsgonebuy.com/

I LOVE Iron Out! If any of your boys went to WWBA in Georgia this summer and came back with ruined reddish-brown pants (mainly because they attempted laundering, unsuccessfully), TRY IT. I bought it as a final option before donating all of son's pants to my nephew's dog (he loves playing tug-of-war with baseball pants, apparently). They LOOK LIKE NEW, and I did nothing but soak them. Granted, I think I put in twice as much as directed on the bottle, but truly, it was amazing how good they look now!!

Sorry... saw this subject and thought I would share a tip given to me by a mom from my son's team.

Murphy's Wood Oil Soap!!! It works... wash once just to get the excess dirt of the pants. Take out and soak in the Murphy's for an hour or so and wash again. Stains are gone. We did this when we came back from the Dominican Republic... nasty infield dirt there. Works on pants that were stained and put in the dryer. You can spot treat also.

http://www.colgate.com/MurphyO...cts/original-formula

Hey ninthmanout,

I am an IronOut kinda gal, but did you dilute the Murphy's oil when you soaked the pants?

Yes, I used about a 1/2 cup per gallon, maybe a little more.
The mom that gave me the tip said she had tried everything on her sons pants and could not get the stains out, so her son was just using them for practice. She heard about Murphy's and tried it and the stains came out. The pants had been washed and dried many times and the stains still came out.
If the stains are really bad I spot treat.

Iron-Out...

The stuff works so great it's unbelievable! No scrubbing. Just soak in hot water!

Pour some in 5 gal bucket, add a little detergent to the mix, then add enough hot water to cover pants.

Add pants, pour a little more in and use a broom stick to move around.

After a while the stains just disappear! The stuff stinks like sulphur, so move it to the porch or garage ASAP!

After they soak for a few hours or so, just wash as normal. I couldn't find anywhere locally, so I just ordered it on amazon.

You will not believe it! Son's pants that's he's wore in over 100+ games keep looking brand new!

You will be shocked and happy!