Before and After: Yellow Stain Miracle!

As we were recently moving, I realized that some of our pillows were really, really yellowed. I figured we would just use them as padding on the truck, then throw them away when we got to our new house. But then I came across this article with tips for whitening mattress pads, pillows, etc., so I figured I would give it a try.  It's always nice to save money and keep more trash out of our landfills, right?

It worked!  What an amazing difference!  See for yourself....

BEFORE: Yellowed and dingy - Bleh!

 *Please no comments about how bad these look! I already know!:)

AFTER:  Much better - clean and bright!(Note that the bottom pillow has a blue/gray cover. It is significantly cleaner, but obviously not white.)

I confess that I am slightly addicted to "Before and After" photos. There is something wonderful about seeing things that look ugly (or) dirty (and/or) plain, transformed into beautiful (or) clean (and/or) spruced-up condition.  So I often click on pictures of furniture that has been rehabilitated, rooms that have been made over, and household items that have been given a new lease on life.  It is amazing what a little TLC can do!  
I have found many of these examples on Pinterest, which is where I found a recipe for cleaning yellowed bedding.  

As you can see, our pillows were really bad... gross in fact. (It's embarrassing to even show them, but I'm hoping no one will judge me here! ) We all sweat as we sleep, and this is what happens over time. So, here's the scoop:

Laundry Whitening Recipe:

• 1 Cup Laundry Detergent (I used generic powdered stuff from the dollar store)
• 1 Cup Powdered Dishwasher Detergent
• 1 Cup Bleach* (or non-chlorine bleach if you wish)
• 1/2 Cup Borax
• VERY HOT Water, using as little as possible so your solution is concentrated

Since the goal is to create a HOT, concentrated solution to soak the laundry in, I set my load size on "small" and added a couple of pots of boiling water to boost the temperature. (I would suggest skipping the boiling water if your laundry room is on a different floor than your kitchen. Mine is only a few steps away.) 

I let the washer agitate for a minute to dissolve the ingredients, then I stopped it and put two pillows in to soak. 

The water only reached about halfway up the pillows, so after 30 minutes I turned them over to soak the other side. You can definitely soak things longer, but I was impatient.  The difference was already dramatic:

After they had soaked on the other side for another 30-40 minutes, I filled the washer up so the water would almost cover the pillows, and put them on a short wash cycle. As you can see, they are MUCH cleaner and brighter looking! Not quite like new, but WAY better, and they smell great too! Now that I've proven this recipe works, I'll be giving the same treatment to all our pillows! I think I will soak them longer next time just to eek out that last bit of whiteness.

*A word about chlorine bleach: After checking a few places online, I see that the use of bleach is controversial. Some people prefer not to EVER use chlorine bleach, and some fabrics won't tolerate it.  I decided to give it a try, since I was willing to part with these pillows if it didn't work.  If you have heirloom linens or expensive pillows, you should probably avoid the chlorine bleach and replace it with a non-chlorine substitute, or leave it out altogether.

Here's another batch of pillows I did, with similar (but even more dramatic) results:

BEFORE:Super yuck!

AFTER: Fresh and white! I'm so happy!

  I think I'll also start posting some other Before & After projects I have in mind. I have some furniture I want to paint, and it's fun for me to see the difference in photos.