Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Bike grease and laundry perils

Somehow, I got chain grease on my pink windbreaker... arrgh. I wasn't even working on the bike, it just appeared.

I grabbed some Dawn dishwashing liquid from the office's kitchen, and that didn't do anything to break up the grease.
Also, my co-workers made fun of the way I said 'Dawn'.
In Pittsburgh, they say "DAAAHN". I... having grown up near Philly, actually use the W that's in Dawn and I say it with an extra nasally flair.
Accents aside, I was upset that the go-to grease stain remover had failed me. I really didn't want these black smudges on my super-awesome jacket. I took it home and tested a spot with some Goo-Gone before applying it to the stain. Thankfully, the Goo-Gone didn't stain the jacket and I tried it on the grease and chucked it into the washing machine. I also wanted to see if the Goo-Gone would get rid of the mussels oil I had splattered all over my pink jersey months ago. I was never able to get the oil stains out.
What was I thinking? This stuff is pure oil... orange oil!
Oil + Oil ≠ (-Oil)

Never use this stuff on clothes, EVER!


Good news: the Goo-Gone broke up the grease a bit, but not completely.

Bad news: the orange oil based Goo-Gone ruined the pink jersey! The somewhat visible stains were now atrociously hideous and BROWN! OMG, what have I done?!?

Fels Naptha to the rescue. I used this old-school laundry soap on the orange oil stains, full strength and washed it again, pleading with the Laundry Gods to have mercy.
It worked. Whew.
Not only did the Fels Naptha take care of the GooGone stains, but it took care of the set-in mussels stains. So awesome.

I keep Fels Naptha around the house to make my own laundry soap. I've been making/using it for a few years and it literally costs under $2.50 to make a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff. So much money saved considering it runs 4-6 dollars for a gallon of commercial detergent. This is the first time I've used the soap full-strength as a pre-treater.






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