Need Your White Shirt Back? Here's a Miracle in a Box

Hey, messy eaters: Do I have a solution for you!

If you feel absolutely compelled to wear a white shirt to eat chili or spaghetti, then you'll need to run--don't drive or walk--to a fabric store (Jo-Ann in my case) and pick up a small packet of Rit Laundry Treatment/White-Wash. Costs $2.29 and saved my relatively new Duck Head white shirt, the one I really, really like.

This shirt wasn't the victim of sauce; it was a spilled cup of coffee. I rushed it, still wet, to the basement and gave it a good bleach bath in the washer, but that didn't do the job.

I actually tossed the shirt out, but thought better of it. Maybe I could dye it a nice cardinal, I thought, so I set out to find some dye and wound up at Jo-Ann. The sales lady, who showed me to the dye, asked what I was doing and when I told her, she suggested the White-Wash. "Use about half a package," she instructed, "and follow directions." She had noted that I am a man and needed the reminder.

The White-Wash removed all signs of the coffee and even erased a slight case of ring-around-the-collar. Good stuff. But don't use it on colors.The sales rep said White-Wash "is bleach on steroids."