I CANNOT get his shirts clean. Already!

[Soonish]

I've just washed some of ds1's school shirts twice using persil and using a prewash the second time.

Zilch effect, the collars and cuffs are filthy and there are random grass stains too.

These are brand new, super ultra non iron ones from M&S that he has probably worn about 3 days each.

He's just started secondary and I am almost in tears of despair. I can't afford to keep replacing them every few weeks.

What do I DO?

My son is in P3 and All his shirts were ruined the first week. They use hand held white boards. White board markers and 7 year olds are the stupidest idea, ever. Ink spots and lines all over the shirt, his arms, his hands, and his pants are grey so probably there too, but no matter.

Why on earth are primary school shirts WHITE? I vote grey or brown, dark blue or green. (I have seen red polo shirts around town, now there is a nightmare. I bet at least half the kids have socks and underclothes that didnt used to be pink!)

Don't ask how I discovered this, but any clear alcohol gets grass stains out. Waste of vodka maybe, but works a treat! Everything else is soaked in bio before washing. Pen marks etc just stay and fade eventually.

I only buy short sleeved shirts after getting heartily sick of grubby cuffs. Neither DD nor DS have complained of being cold - they get a bus to and from school, and classrooms are always overheated. Agree with only one day's wear and sunlight, plus a hot wash every so often. I work in a factory environment and wear navy polo shirts, I wish the uniform was the same!

My colder running DD2 likes M&S three quarter length sleeved blouses.

Some makes of white polo shirt are better than others. No one bought she expensive logo'd school ones, the collars went grey really quickly.

I use these little sachets I put in with the white wash. DS's shirts come out a brilliant white after that.

sorry if this already said but I spray underarms with Vanish spray before washing, helps remove/reduce sweat smells.

Dreading school uniform, (our primary doesn't have it) why the hell do we still insist on it, they'd be much happier knocking about in a t shirt and jeans like all those european kids!

My son has the same M&S ones and they come clean with Ariel, Aldi's own cheap stuff and whatever else I happen to use. He has 3 of the shirts and been in the school 3 weeks, they come clean on a 15 minute mini wash as well.
So far we've had grass stains (contact rugby playing!), tomato ketchup, hot chocolate and gravy and no problems.

combust22 I am the same with line drying, maybe that accounts for DS's neon white shirts :)

I use a variation. For general grubbiness I add Vanish Oxi powder and only wash whites together, no other colours.

If necessary I soak the shirts in Vanish for a couple of hours, a lot better than the spray. I also like Dr. Beckman's Stain Devil, the stuff comes in various versions, depending on the type of stain. I get chocolate and blood out with no problem.

I never use Bio, I don't find it necessary and I dealt with usesable nappies when DD was a baby.

Somebody asked about sweat: I had a couple of work tops and found they got smelly. I made a paste of bicarbonate of soda and vinegar and rubbed it into the arm pits, left it for a couple of hours and washed it with another slosh of vinegar in the fabric conditioner slot in the machine. It needed a second run but all the sweat smell was gone. Now I just rinse with vinegar every now and then. Only the kitchen now smells while they soak....

Blimey! Talk about 1st world worries.

Why does it matter so much if his shirts are stained? You know they are clean. He knows they are clean. His peers don't care and his teachers certainly won't.

They have to keep their blazers on all the time, except PE obviously, in my DS's school so we only iron the front!

As long as they don't smell, who cares, really?

I would never have believed that this thread would get 85 posts!

Oh my goodness, do some of your teens have a new school shirt on every day? I have a 14 year old step-son, and it has recently come to light that he only has one school shirt

Discovered it yesterday morning and it hadn't been washed for over a fortnight (he only comes to us every-other-weekend) and the inside of the supposedly white colour was almost black - bleurgh! I'm going to go buy him a couple of new ones now.

My teens wear a clean shirt every day.

I always had a clean shirt every day, DDs have one most days.
DD2 has too many school shirts and DD1 too few, so it's a bit of a pickle at the moment.

my primary school children have a clean shirt every day. They are cheap and cheerful from tesco and are short sleeved to prevent mucky sleeves/cuffs

100% Cotton Easy iron shirts are coated with stuff that makes them less breathable so they are in effect very similar to wearing a polyester shirt in that they will smell rank pretty quickly. Engrained dirt is waaaay more difficult to shift than a regular cotton shirt.

He needs a clean shirt every day, pre-treat with stain remover on the collars and cuffs, and stains obv. and wash at 40 in non-bio.

Every other wash I'd give the shirts a hot wash with stain remover and bio, and an extra rinse cycle to get rid of product for his ezcema.

Don't tumble dry if you can or minimise - it wrecks them as it shrinks the stitching so the seams will pucker. Fasten top two buttons and hang on a hanger to dry - poly cottons or easy iron dry v quickly anyway.

Napisan shifts anything in my experience.

Only one school shirt poor boy good for you for going to buy more for him.
I donate all old uniform to a reuse place near us that helps families who struggle to buy it.

Only one of everything chocolatespiders (trousers/shirt/jumper) so it's a nightmare trying to get it all washed, dried (no tumble drier) and ironed between Fri night and Sun night sometimes. No idea why he only has one; his Mum is far from poor ! but that's a whole other thread

So I'm going out to look for 100% cotton shirts, yes? But not easy-iron as they may end up smelly?

Someone upthread mentioned ' Halo' for washing smelly gym/ sports clothes.

Its brilliant - I use it for all our smelly stuff and for handwashing my bras, too.

Raisinboys, I wish you had not posted that as it has made me feel rubbish.

Slinky I feel for him.. Good for you though for helping him out.
I am not sure about the easy iron thing is it the coating that makes it smell.

I think halo is hard to get now but tesco do a sports wash liquid. I sometimes spray under arms with white vinegar.

By the time DS gets to school you can't tell whether his shirt was ironed or not, so I don't bother.

Shout stain remover spray on collar and cuffs does a decent job, but might not be suitable for someone with eczema. And we do a wash with whitener stuff in every few weeks for all the family white shirts / karate gis.

I replace when outgrown or grey to the point of grimness, not when they're a bit stained - it's school, not a fashion parade. I do normally get him a new one when we get to school concert season, as they have a habit of making them take jackets off if they're performing! (Goodness knows why as there's always someone who's wearing a blue shirt rather than a white one).

Teachers will care! They might not say anything, but trust me, they notice.
My children - teens and preteens always have clean uniform on daily.

If my child's teacher has noticed that in our household there's more emphasis put on books, music, hobbies and learning than on how white our shirts are... I'm completely comfortable with that.

So they would disregard my ds's quick brain, good manners and quirky sense of humour because sometimes he's a bit of a scruff? Hope not!

wash all school shirts and anything else that needs to be kept white on a 60 wash with a large scoop of 'soda crystals' in the drawer (and also washing powder/liquid/tabs, whatever you use as normal). It's cheap and it works - 65p a kilo in Home Bargains, more expensive in the supermarkets but far, far cheaper than Vanish et al.