Bits & Pieces

In response to requests for more household cleaning and natural suggestions that I've used and know that work, I'm posting a few that don't take up an entire blog post. They're appropriately called "Bits & Pieces." In today's entry, we're looking at underarm stick stains, wart removal and veg sandwiches for toddlers. Enjoy!

Removing Underarm Stick Stains: A few friends have mentioned this particular stain remover recently. It’s not because I walk around with splotches on my tops. I checked; no splotches on me. But this is a really good trick that works. If you find that your underarm stick rubs onto your clothing as you’re getting dressed, or if your toddler decides to use the stick as a neat crayon, the easiest way to get the smudge stain off immediately is a fabric softener sheet, such as Bounce. You simply wipe the sheet over the affected area and the smudge is gone. No need to throw an entire outfit in the laundry before its truly worn.

Wart Be Gone: If you have a wart, any sort really (even a plantar wart on your foot), the most effective way to remove it is with apple cider vinegar (ACV). I’m not sure if other vinegars work, but ACV definitely does. I’ve only ever used Bragg brand, as it has the good mother in it. I strongly suggest using Bragg brand in this remedy, as I don’t know if other ACVs work (as effectively). It’ll take about a week from start to finish. Basically you soak a cotton ball or other cotton batting (depending on wart size) in ACV and then tape it the affected area with duct tape. The entire wart and a ring of unaffected skin around the wart must be covered by both the cotton batting and the duct tape. Keep it covered. Within the next day or two, when you replace the “bandage,” you’ll notice that the wart had basically exploded. It’s the virus that causes the wart gasping for air or some such. You’ll notice a wee little black dot in the middle of the wart. That’s the dying virus. You need to keep the affected area covered by your “bandages” around the clock for a week. At some point during the week, you’ll notice that the underlying skin is basically taking back over. At the end of the week, you can cut or pumice the dead skin away and your new skin will be as though no wart had been there, albeit a wee bit red from the pumicing etc.

Sandwiches: Evidently toddlers love sandwiches. At least my toddler and local toddler friends seem to love sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. We’re looking for healthy ideas to offer them. Some suggest pureed veg spreads, hummus, dips for them to dip the sandwiches in, pickles with anything, cucumber, and mozzarella and tomato. What has worked for your kids when you’re trying to get them to eat more veg?

Disappearing Ink

Image via Wikipedia As with many things in life, I get ticked off when stain removal doesn’t work absolutely and every time. I mean, really quite grumpy…for, like, the rest of the day.

As a left hander who uses fountain pens and a lawyer, I write a lot and ink generally gets on me and my clothing – sometimes as much, or more, than on the paper. Through the decades I’ve spent many a day pissed off because the “surefire ink fix” that this or that celebrity or guidebook suggests simply does not work. You have the secret fix your Aunt Melba used once in the 70s and it worked then hunh? Well, screw you and Melba, because using her fix spread the blotch and it totally ruined my favorite t-shirt.

In my 20s I became adept at strategic placement of handbags, cool jacket lapels and pins to cover up the teeny weeny ink stain that simply wouldn’t come out – not even after dropping $50 in repeated dry cleaner bills. To a certain extent my inkedness dispelled any thoughts of buying clothing that was more than disposable, because regardless of whether a blouse was $20 or $2,000, it was destined to get ink on it in my life.

Well, dear reader, if you’ve made it this far…I’ve found ink removal nirvana. Yes, really.

This trick works every time. I repeat, every time. It works completely and it does not harm the fabric. It also does not need to be done immediately. It will work on a dried ink stain as well as one that's just happened.

So what is this magic ink removal fix you ask? Nail polish remover. And it doesn’t need to be fancy schpancy nail polish remover. The cheapo schmeapo stuff works just as well for a fraction of the cost. (But hey, if you want to drop an additional $20 on big name stuff, go ahead. Be a spendthrift. I’d rather save the cash.)

So take the ink stained item (here it was a t-shirt), put a folded up paper towel under the layer where the stain resides. Here, the ink stain was on the front of the t-shirt. I separated the back of the t-shirt from the front, slipped my hand in between (ie-inside the shirt) and held the folded paper towel directly under the stain…so the back of the t-shirt was behind my hand-holding-the-paper-towel.

Then put the paper-towel-and-ink-stain directly over an open bottle of nail polish remover, press the paper-towel-t-shirt onto the open top and flip it over quickly. So the nail polish remover doesn’t “run freely,” but the polish douses that circle of ink. The paper towel will be wet underneath. That part of the ink stain will be gone. Now repeat for the rest of the stain. Blot the front of the item (here a t-shirt) with a dry paper towel so that any excess polish remover is sucked up and doesn’t run all over the place.

After you’ve made the entire stain disappear, close the bottle of nail polish remover and rinse the area with tap water. I generally just run it under the faucet until it doesn’t smell badly when I hold it up to my nose.

Then dry out the item and wash it in the laundry like you’d do regularly.

Have fun trying this one out – let me know how it goes for you!

Any questions on stain removal? Send me an email at jenn (at) jbmercurio (dot) com.

Related articles

• How do you get nail polish off a shirt (wiki.answers.com)
• Getting Ball Point Pen Marks Out of the Dryer (thehappyhousewife.com)
• Hairspray - The Unexpected, Multi-Use Product (nolagirlsocial.wordpress.com)

Wonderful Wine Wash

Image via Wikipedia I've been meaning to post this solution for a long time, and the beginning of the summer season seems as good a time as any!

One doesn't need to be a parent to be beset by red wine and grape juice stains, regardless of whether they're located on clothing, furniture, table linens or carpeting. Sometimes the dry cleaner is able to get them out, but many times not. A quick Google search for a tried and true solution brings up over 3.4 million suggestions, but I've found most of those are really blind stabs into the darkness that do not work. Some suggest keeping the stain wet; some others suggest drying the stain out. Some say scrub, others say no scrubbing. It’s as though grape juice and red wine stains bring even the most contentious to their knees every time.

Well, there is a solution that works Every Single Time. It’s like magic. Seriously.  The first time I tried it, my mouth literally hung open in stupefied amazement.

White wine.

Yes, really. It works as well with champagne, top shelf and bottem of the barrel stuff. I've tried it all. Yes, I really have. lol

First, test it out. I'll prove it to ya. Take a rag and dab, drip or pour some red wine on one end and some grape juice on the other end. You don’t need much, a wee bit will do for our purposes. Now whip out your bottle of even-really-cheap-bought-just-for-this-purpose-swill-white-wine and either dab or pour it on each stain. The stain instantly disappears. It’s like the opposite of using secret ink or something.

Amazing right??? Are you as excited reading about this as I am just thinking about it???

I love this stain remover. It's awesome. My favorite way of using it is putting a wee drab in a wee finger bowl and dunking the stain into it. It reactivated dried stains (that may or may not have been there for years) and it works on wet items as well.

After the dunk, dab or what have you, you can simply rinse the item out or throw it in the wash. A quick rinse with dish liquid and water works as well to simply get the wine smell out.

For carpeting, I’ve used the trick by taking a corner of a towel or paper towel, dunking it in the white wine, ringing it out and then dabbing the affected carpet. I’ve then rinsed the smell out with soapy water and sponge.

Let me know how it works for you.

I’m happy to answer other cleaning questions. If you have them, feel  free to email me at jenn (at) jbmercurio (dot) come.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Related articles

• Anti-Stain Treatment - Berries and Cherries (carpet-cleaning-southend-on-sea.co.uk)
• Wine Stains On Carpet: 10 Tips to Remove (doorfly.com)
• Anti-Stain Treatment - red wine (carpet-cleaning-southend-on-sea.co.uk)

Oxyclean Boil Bomb is Da Bomb

I finally tried the Oxyclean boil bomb (ok, that's my title) today and boy did it work wonders!

What is the Oxyclean boil bomb? It’s basically using a deep cleaner to extra super duper deep clean clothing items without harming them. I call it a bomb, because it's bombing and (hopefully) destroying tough stains. An acquaintance had discussed this deep cleaning action in her blog, and I’d been excitedly waiting for an opportunity to use it.

Dear Child had a couple of items of clothing that had stains that refused to come out and as I was tossing them into the garbage, I caught myself and realized (yay!) I finally had great items to experiment on.

Here are the basic instructions:

Fill a big pot full of water on the stove. Add 1/4-1/2 cup Oxyclean. Slowly bring to a boil. Make sure the room is well ventilated. Lower heat to low simmer. Add clothing with stains that haven't come out no matter what, or that have been stained for years, but you can't bring yourself to throw out. Low simmer, or cover and turn heat off, for one hour. Stains should be all gone.

After doing this, I rinsed the items in cold water to set and stop the cleaning action, and then ran the clothing through a regular laundry cycle.

The items that I used now look better than new, as they're even brighter and spiffier.

Let me know how it works for you!

Gloomy Day Blues

Today I'm having the gloomy day blues.

After it was eighty and bright yesterday, the rain returned and the temperatures have gone down to the high forties today.  On top of that add an entire family of snotty allergy sufferers, all doped up on Claritin, and it makes for a day when the To Do list looks insurmountable and working out feels, well, blech.

We all get these wish I could stay at home and snuggle into a sweater or bed kind of days. It's easier to do when one is a toddler. One simply needs to rub one’s eyes and say "Seepy" a few times for the parental units catch on and solve the issue. But for us adults, the To Do list calls and we plow forward, while really wanting to fall asleep in our chair.

I wonder what the equivalent is in the Middle East. They don't have overcast or allergy filled days - ever. Sure, it gets hot, but it's dry heat and SUNNY. I wonder if, for folks there, it's the sand storm blues.  But I digress.

Yesterday’s weekly weigh in was relatively satisfying. I hadn’t gained any weight, and I hadn’t lost any either. I’d been a bit freaked out because a mid-week weigh in had shown a ten pound weight spike. But that was inconsistent with all other weigh ins last week, so I’m happy to claim the status quo weight.

It feels like my body isn’t necessarily at a plateau, but rather regrouping before the next series of losses. After working out, and losing weight, steadily for about four months (and fifteen pounds), I think my body deserves the momentary rest to regroup. Lord knows I do. But then, that’s probably the gloomy day blues talking.

I wonder what you all do out there to brighten up on days like today? Do you give in to the ache to sleep, or do you power up with caffeine?

Feel free to email me or comment here. I'd love to try your tricks and report back in a future blog post.