Yesterday, I finally got around to something that’s been on the to-do list for ages. I found a tutorial online on how to get armpit stains outta white t-shirts, and I tried it out.

Booooooring, Steph.

But guys… it was A LOT of shirts. Josh wears em all the time for work and is less than easy on em, and I know there’s cool tees that I’m not wearing anymore because they’re more than a little unsightly in the pit region. So I’m passing the findings on to you!

Here’s a link to the tutorial I used. It’s a multi-step approach, and ended up doing pretty well on all but the nastiest of stains. If you’ve got shirts that are mildly gross this’ll probably fix em right up!

1) Make a paste of baking soda and water and work that into the pits. Let it sit for a half hour. By the end I wasn’t even using their 1 to 1 ratio anymore since I had so many shirts I was working with. I made a kinda liquidy solution that I worked into the pits with a stiff nylon brush, and then I used a superthick paste that I really worked into the nooks and crannies by hand.

I put everything out in the sun to dry for a half hour, then rinsed.

2) Put the shirts in a water/vinegar bath for at least a half hour. I wasn’t scientific about the amounts on this either since I was doing a ton of tees. I basically put a bunch of warm water in a bucket, put a few glugs of vinegar into the water, and soaked the shirts. You’ll see a neat plop plop fizz fizz effect when the residue from the baking soda step reacts with the vinegar.

3) After that step, ya rinse it out. Then I stain-sticked the heck outta all the pits, and let that sit for at least a half hour.

4) Wash. If you’re just doing white tee shirts by themselves, wash with hot water. And if you’re just doing white shirts that are 100% cotton, add a couple of glugs of bleach to the mix for good measure.

5) Revel in the fact that you can wear your Elvira shirt again!