Can anyone get school shirts white?

[MadhouseMama]

Hot washes, stain removers, soaking in soda crystals...I feel like I've tried them all but then I realised I hadn't yet tried MN, fool that I am.

So here I am, a fledgling reception mum with a mucky boy ( and another in his footsteps) and years of black marker covered grey cuffed shirts ahead of me... How do I get those blighters white again?

Come on MNs, I know you have the answer!

are they truly white or white with coloured school logo?
if just white, soak in bleach before washing. bio powder + high temp for washing.

Thanks MM (oo, just like me ) they are truly white with an unbelievable ability to retain grey murkiness!

They must be made out of some sort of special fabric designed to drive mothers mad and what's with the black marker pens in reception? DS never fails to come home with a freshly marked shirt on, so every day i have to give him a fresh one.

Ranting now, sorry! Will search out Biotex tomorrow...didn't know they still made that and give it a whirl.

Ta!

Napisan is amazing at getting out stains ...:)

I have given up with long sleeves. Short sleeves cuffs don't get mucky and ds wears a jumper in his massively overheated classroom.

I occasionally soak in borax with the nappies which seems to whiten a bit.

After years of experimenting, M&S no iron shirts and aerial? gel. Primary School is worse though.

Glad to see it might actually not just be me being a total laundry failure. My knickers are positively sparkling, afterall!

I've never had a problem with keeping whites White and it's DH who is the mucky pup rather than DS. (blood & iodine are particularly fun to get out of White work shirts) I've always used persil non bio (DH is allergic to anything else) powder & dr beckman stain remover on specific stains.
Always double check the whites was for a stray sock too. Use dylon colour run remover / sheets if you have a mix wash accident.
I've found some cheap stuff (Tesco) doesn't wash or wear too well, Asda and M&S are better.
Worst of all is DSs yellow school polo shirts which don't wash well (terrible shrinkage and colour loss) & aren't tumble dryable FFS why do they have a uniform that doesn't clean easily, you can only buy from one supplier so we're stuck with this expensive poor quality crap

or what about the stuff that's for net curtains?

Short sleeves and chill, school shirts aren't meant to be white.

DDs have M&S ones and they aren't bad.

Be grateful you don't have our old logo'd polo shirts.

No one wears them for a reason. They are £££ and the collars go grey first wash. Not dirt, just awful quality.

Napisan is brilliant - I use it for all our whites

If stained, i presoak in warm soapy or washing up liquid water, spray the stain with sterilising solution (which i guess is pretty much diute bleech) and then wash at 60 with only other lights. If just grubby with paint etc i just wash at 60. Whites deffinately benefit from sun bleaching on the line whenever you get a chance.

I buy Asda or Tesco polos now and get about two terms out of them before they're looking sad. I tried M&S stain resistant, at four times the price, but they still ended up a bit grey.

I agree with what pp said about avoiding long sleeves. Classrooms are notoriously over heated and they have a jumper if they're cold.

Dd thinks she's Jackson Pollock, so has massive blotches of acrylic paint all over hers. Will try Napisan, thanks.

dh's work shirts get very dirty - blood, mud, ink and food. I just put them in the washing machine on 60 degree stains setting with pre wash and wash plus. put washing powder and vanish for whites in both washing powder bits and they always seem to come out clean. I don't know which bit it is that works but I decided to try everything in desperation one day and it worked.

Definitel napisan, and soak overnight. Works brilliantly on cricket whites as well.

Sorry, nothing shifts acrylic paint.

You can get it off when it's wet, but not afterwards. Basically it's plastic film that dries round the fibres.

If it gets on uniform, that becomes art day jumper for the next year.

DDs best friend has £££ blouses (that sort of school). Red cuffs went to art for the next two years

Oh well, thanks, Startail, at least I can stop trying.

Thanks all. I think they must be that poly cotton mix...I don't have this problem with any of my other whites.

We also have the dreadful logo'd airtex shirts.

I'm loving the short sleeves approach...no more grubby grey cuffs for me

Although may have to experiment with the dish washing tabs...just to see!

I even resorted to asking a professional artist I met at a show if he knew how to shift acrylic paint and he said nothing too. You just have never to let it dry on clothes or brushes.

DDs given up on palettes because you can't get it off them either. She just buys stacks if paper plates from the pound shop and bins them.

Pity I can't do the same with logo'd red and yellow splattered school jumpers. Although to be fair she does stick her cuffs under the tap if she notices.

wash at 40 add a sachet of glow white to the drum, regular washing powder and comfort if you use it

yep short sleeves all the way with my three

and less ironing

I use Ariel whitener on school shirts and hang them out in the sun at the first opportunity.

GloWhite is your friend & that new whitening fabric softener.

Lidl bio washing powder and a scoop of Ariel whitener stain remover keeps my whites gleaming, and I wash at 40 degrees.

When I worked in a preschool the paint we used always said on the bottle that if it got on clothes to wash in non bio, if that helps anyone.

The Lidl powder got emulsion of DS1's trousers.