What is the most stain resistant white tee shirt you can buy?
January 16, 2021 3:51 PM   Subscribe

I love white tees. Ringer tees especially. I look good in them. And within five wearings of each one, I get a permanent stain that makes them into gym shirts. And by seven, I add enough more that they turn into dishrags. What white tee is the MOST stain resistant out there? I don't care what it costs. It's gotta be cheaper than replacing them.
posted by rileyray3000 to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (8 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Where are they staining? If it’s dingy armpits, would you consider changing your deodorant to one that is aluminum-free?
posted by charmedimsure at 3:56 PM on January 16, 2021 [4 favorites]


a tub of Oxyclean and some vigorous stain treating is surely cheaper than any new shirt, and if your body chemistry is just prone to this you can even seek out the sodium percarbonate on Amazon at higher concentration. It really really works on sweat and skin oil grime if you give it a chance to work, pretreating aggressively followed with adding it to laundry on the hottest setting. 100% cotton takes to this treatment better than blend fabrics and shirts that have already been stained then put in the dryer may not be salvageable, but starting over with oxygen bleach and drying on low temp or air dry may double or triple the life of the next shirt. if you get some magic synthetic blend that is specially treated in some way (like technical wicking fabrics), don't try this of course, you may wreck the shirt.
posted by slow graffiti at 4:33 PM on January 16, 2021 [11 favorites]


oh and wash your shirts as soon as you can - sweat soaked clothes that go in the wash right away almost always come out fine, it's when the sweat sits around and gets a chance to really oxidize for a few days that it stains
posted by slow graffiti at 4:35 PM on January 16, 2021 [1 favorite]


There's an outpost of ably near me, and they claim to have stain / spill resistant t shirts.
posted by batter_my_heart at 4:45 PM on January 16, 2021


What about treating the shirts you like to improve stain resistance? The Scotchgard FAQ says laundered items should be re-treated after washing each time, but if your stain problem is in a limited zone, like the food splash-zone down the front, it should be trivial to give that area a fresh coat each wash. Obviously, you'd want to run a trial over a month or two with one shirt, to make sure it doesn't alter the appearance of the fabric, but I use the stuff on a lot of craft materials and shoes and do not generally notice it there after it is dry.

They do also appear to have a partnership with Quiksilver, who do have a white shirt in their tee collection.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:06 PM on January 16, 2021


Use bluing on your shirts.
posted by aniola at 6:58 PM on January 16, 2021


Yeah, it took me a long time to figure out that oxyclean or similar is the way to deal with this. If you have really bad stains, pre-soak them. But just plan to always wash them in hot water with oxyclean or similar, even if you don’t see stains. Try this with some of the shirts you currently have. Soak them overnight and wash them in hot water.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:06 PM on January 16, 2021 [1 favorite]


I would look at your laundry habits - wash with other whites, get a great stain remover, pre-treat stains.
Puracy brand stain remover is really really really good.
It has a 4.5 rating out of 4600 ratings on Amazon Canada.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 8:25 PM on January 17, 2021


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