Sweat stains under the armpits on clothes are an unpleasant problem, especially if they appeared on a favorite shirt or sweater. Characteristic yellow marks spoil the appearance, are clearly visible to others, and sometimes smell unpleasant, even after washing. Regular washing by hand or in the washing machine not only does not usually help to cope with the problem, but can also aggravate it, making the sweat mark more vivid. The question arises: should the thing be thrown away? Or is there a way, what and how to remove sweat stains?
What should not be done?
It is absolutely impossible to remove sweat stains with chlorine bleach. The so-called apocrine sweat is secreted under the armpits, the main part of which is water, and 15% is fats and proteins. The protein will enter into a chemical reaction with chlorine, which will make the mark even darker. It is better to bleach clothes later, when the stain is completely washed off.
High temperatures are contraindicated. Do not wash a sweaty shirt in hot water and do not dry it on a battery or hot dryer. High temperature contributes to the fixation of sweat secretions in the fabric, as well as their smell. Not only will the clothes not be washed, but they will also smell unpleasant.
Household soap
The most affordable option, how to remove sweat. But washing should be done immediately. Come home, take off the ruined shirt and under the faucet with cold water, lock the yellow spot, rubbing it with soap. After that, put the clothes in the washing machine. Mode and temperature are selected according to the type of fabric.
If it was not possible to do laundry right away, you can use folk recipes to wash away yellow stains from sweat:
- Household soap and oxalic acid. Using a soft brush and household soap, soap the stain thoroughly. Leave for half an hour (do not immerse in water), then rinse. Next, treat the area with oxalic acid (concentration of 1 teaspoon per glass of water) and set aside for 10 minutes. Rinse and wash as usual.
- Boiling. Rub laundry soap on a grater, you will need about half a glass. Prepare a metal bucket or pan, fill it with water, add soap shavings, heat it and put dirty clothes in boiling water. Keep the thing on low heat for 3-4 hours. This method of bleaching sweat is suitable for cotton fabrics.
- It is more difficult to remove sweat stains from woolen fabrics. Household soap is dissolved in hot water, clothes are soaked in this soapy solution for an hour or a half. Do not rub, otherwise the wool fibers will stretch, and instead of stains, you will get a shapeless thing.
Hydrogen peroxide
The most difficult thing is how to remove sweat under the armpits from cotton fabric. And if the clothes are left unwashed for several days, then the mission seems impossible in general. But there is a solution – use hydrogen peroxide. But keep in mind that it has a bleaching effect, so do not use it on colored and dark fabrics.
So, prepare the following homemade detergent:
- 2 tsp. baking soda,
- 1 tsp. gel for washing dishes,
- ¼ part of a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
The ingredients are mixed. The sweat stain is thoroughly soaked with the resulting solution, rubbed with a brush of medium hardness and left for an hour so that the agent enters into a chemical reaction with the sweat and removes it. At the end, wash the clothes with laundry soap and rinse.
It is very important to rinse the fabric well from the peroxide if you are going to dry it in the sun, as the peroxide leaves yellow marks under the influence of the sun’s rays.
Aspirin
If you are worried not only about the stain, but also how to remove the smell of sweat, then aspirin will help.
- Grind a few aspirin tablets into powder. It is most convenient to put them in a bag or wrap them in paper and hit them with a kitchen hammer.
- Pour the aspirin powder into a bowl and add a little water. The amount of water should be such that the result is a thick slurry.
- Apply the resulting paste to the sweat mark and leave it for an hour or two. Then rinse and enjoy the result, or repeat if necessary. If the clothes are white, then after aspirin, you can whiten the area with the stain by pouring it with hydrogen peroxide.
The aspirin method is suitable for clothes of any color.
Salt, soda
These two ingredients are in the kitchen of any housewife and can be used not only in cooking, but also to remove sweat stains from clothes. There are several proven recipes:
- Mix salt and soda, pour the mixture with liquid soap to a thick mass. Rub the contaminated area of the fabric with this liquid and leave it for 30-40 minutes. Wash it off.
- Dilute 1 tbsp. l. salt in a glass of warm water. Soak the sweaty spot in a saline solution for 1-2 hours. You can enhance the effect by adding 1 tsp. ammonia or borax, but you only need to soak for half an hour so as not to spoil the fabric. The recipe is suitable for linen, silk and cotton fabrics. Silk fabrics should not be soaked for longer than 10-15 minutes.
- Prepare a thick mass from 4 tbsp. l. baking soda per quarter cup of water. The tool is applied to the sweat mark for an hour or two, then washed off and dried. If the yellow stain remains, then wash it again.
Vinegar
This option, how to remove yellow sweat, in case others do not help.
Acetic acid has a negative effect on the fabric and its color, so it is used on dense white cotton fabric. Soak the sweat stain in concentrated vinegar for a couple of minutes. This will start a chemical reaction that will deal with the pollution.
If you are not sure that the clothes will survive the concentrated vinegar, then prepare a solution of 1 tsp. vinegar to a glass of water, wipe the stain and leave for an hour.
Instead of vinegar, you can try using water or citric acid.
An old sweat stain
And how to remove sweat stains under the armpits, if they have been placed for a long time?
To begin with, try to wash with laundry soap and evaluate the result. Perhaps it will be enough to repeat the procedure several times to wash away the traces. If this does not help, then use one of the following methods. Consider that they can damage the fabric, so they belong to the category “as a last resort”:
- Vinegar and soda. Pour 5 liters of warm (not hot) water into a bowl, add 2 tbsp. l. vinegar and soak the clothes for 30-40 minutes. Then the 4th century. l. mix baking soda with a glass of water and seal the sweat stain with this gruel. Rinse again in vinegar water. After that, wash as usual.
- Vinegar, ammonia, lemon juice. Soak clothes in vinegar water (2 tablespoons of vinegar per 5 liters of water). While it sours, separate 1 tbsp. l. ammonia for half a glass of water and 1 tbsp. l. lemon juice for half a glass of water. Treat a yellow spot under the armpit with a solution of ammonia, rinse in vinegar water, and then soak the area with a sweat mark in a solution of lemon juice for one and a half to two hours. Finally, wash as usual.
- Household soap, aspirin, peroxide. Dissolve shavings of household soap in warm water, soak clothes in it. At this time, dilute 2 aspirin tablets in 1 tsp. of water and apply to the sweat mark, leaving for 3 hours. Then wash in soapy water, rinse and cover the stain with a solution of peroxide (10 to 1) for 10 minutes. Rinse, wash.
Sweat on silk fabric
It is difficult with silk clothes, because not every detergent is suitable. You can use sodium hyposulfite to wash away yellow underarm marks on silk. This substance is also called thiosulfate or antichlor. It is sold in departments of photographic goods under the name “fixation neutral”, you can also find it in a pharmacy, and of course, in a store selling chemical reagents.
The solution is prepared: 1 tbsp. l. sodium hyposulfite per glass of water. The fabric is soaked in it, then rinsed and wiped. You can rinse with the same product, but with a lower concentration. The substance does not harm silk, on the contrary, it brightens the color and removes some impurities, including sweat.