How to Get Grease/Wax Stains Out of Your Clothes. . .and Your Washer

This was a post that happened to me by total mistake, but since it worked, I felt I needed to pass it on.

Yesterday during my lunch break, I bought this beautiful shiny emerald green piece of fabric at the thrift store. (You will notice it is in the trash. . .more on that later.)

All afternoon at work, I sat daydreaming about what to make with it. Would I make another dress? Would I make a skirt? Would I change it up and make something else? Finally, I got home, and, like I do with all my thrift store fabric, I threw it in the wash. I had a few other dirty things including my two Twice dresses pictured from former posts below, and figured I might as well get them clean too:

Well, anyways before throwing the green cloth in, I noticed it was a little sticky. I figured that was because it had been sitting on a shelf for awhile collecting dust? I had no idea. I mean, a lot of thrift store items have weird stuff on them. That's why I always throw my purchases in the wash! 

THIS IS THE PART WHERE DISASTER STRUCK...

To my absolute horror, when I opened the top of the washer, every garment in the wash was thinly coated in this waxy, sticky teal colored substance and also covered in little balls of the stuff that would smear when you touched them. To my further horror, after pulling out all my sticky clothes, I found that the bottom of the washer itself was coated in waxy teal skid marks! It's bad enough when your clothes are ruined, but your washer as well??? (I didn't take any pictures, because I didn't realize I would be blogging about this until after. Trust me, though, it was horrifying.)

I was so close to throwing all my clothes away, but. . .I love my new dresses!!! I just got them! True, one of them was free, but. . .still!

Luckily I was on the phone with my Type 1 mom (still don't know about Types? Go here) and she told me about an idea she'd found years ago in a magazine. What you do is to clean your clothes with not just detergent, but also liquid dish soap. Fortunately, I had a bottle of Dawn. This isn't the most nature-friendly method, but it ended up being very effective.

This is what I did:

First, I had to clean the actual washer, so I removed all the clothes and carefully shook them outside to get rid of all the excess balls of goo. Then I poured some bleach and Dawn into the washer along with three white hand towels and ran it through a hot water washing cycle. It took two times of doing this to get the washer clean! Then, I separated the clothes that were 100% polyester and washed them in warm water with bleach and Dawn. Then, I washed my casual clothes in cold water with my homemade detergent and Dawn. Finally, I washed my two Twice dresses in cold water with detergent and Dawn. All clean! Even the black dress that is made of wool and is supposed to be dry clean only!

I will say that some of my things still have a slight tacky feeling, but that will go away over time. I also hung everything to dry so that the waxy feeling wouldn't set in.

Crisis averted! Thanks, Mom!

The End.