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Whitening laundry without bleach
My adventures in trying to whiten clothes and linen without bleach started with Napisan. That was until we connected our grey water system up to the washing machine to irrigate the garden. The last time I used Napisan and machine-rinsed the items, I watched all the plants near the grey water hose die. Oops! That was a very awkward conversation with hubby, ‘Yes, I killed all your darlings.’
It also made me wonder what was so deadly in the stuff? Hence, I have been on the look out for alternatives ever since.
Here is my review of the three most popular suggestions:
1. Lemon
Fill a pot with water and a few slices of fresh lemon and bring the water to the boil. Turn off heat, add linens, leave to soak for an hour, do not rinse, only wring and hang out in the sunshine, the more sun the better. This method works, because the lemon speeds up the sun’s bleaching. You can wash after.
2. Vinegar
½ cup of vinegar in the pre-wash compartment (or pour it in as the cycle starts.) We have a set of matching white towels and I put them in separate washes on the same cycle and the one with the vinegar did come out looking cleaner. It wasn’t a huge difference, but enough to make me want to keeping trying the vinegar. However, according to this post it doesn’t work as well in hard water.
You can spray vinegar straight onto stains, particularly collar and underarm stains.
3. Bicarbonate Soda (Baking Soda)
A paste of Bicarb (Baking Soda) mixed with water and slapped onto stains worked pretty well for most of the stains. I think I will have to do it again for two spots, but that seems like a pretty good ratio to me.
Otherwise, I am also keen to try these suggestions from National Geographic
Other Stain Removers