Messy Summer Fun and a Little Experiment

When it comes to summertime fun, I love having a good time as much as the next person…you know…as long as there isn’t a mess.

I’m a little bit OCD when it comes to messes in general, but when it comes to getting clothes messy, I sort of take things to another level for a couple of reasons.

Reason #1: Laundry is pretty much (read: for sure) my least favorite thing on the planet. I’ve legitimately been known to go out and buy new underwear because I finally ran out and didn’t want to do laundry. The aversion is strong. With a disdain for laundry this intense, imagine my shock when we added children to the mix. Wait…you mean, I’m seriously supposed to do laundry for other small (ridiculously messy) people too? Two thumbs down to that. I avoid washing my clothes after every wear at all costs and give it my best go, to try to make it happen for my kids too. I totally make them wear these IKEA smocks for any and all activities that might possess even the remote possibility of clothes staining, because ain’t nobody got time for that!

Reason #2: We have a septic system and we can’t use bleach. There’s a long/gross science-y explanation for why, but the main takeaway that we should all be focusing on right here is the fact that I have two small people who smear food and paint and bodily fluids on all of their clothing on a daily basis and I’m expected to keep their clothes from looking completely disgusting WITHOUT USING BLEACH?!?! Who do you think I am? Jesus?! A miracle worker I am not.

OxiClean is my saving grace though. Unlike bleach, OxiClean is septic safe (when used according to the directions…duh) and can brighten my whites like a boss. I’m still an avid kid-smock user who detests laundry, but I appreciate that OxiClean lets us all branch out from darks to whites when warmer weather arrives. We’ve been using OxiClean ever since we moved to our house three years ago and we really like it, but I wouldn’t say we had ever truly put it to the test – you know, like in those commercials where they smear really messy stuff all over the clothes? Yeah none of that was happening…just your basic, everyday laundry messes. So…when I was invited to try out OxiClean and OxiClean White Revive for this post, I decided to employ my daughter to help me test it out in true kid fashion. We decided to see how it could stand up to one of our most favorite summertime activities: backyard berry picking.

 At first Fern was being too careful about not getting berries on her dress (apparently I’ve taught her well), so we started using her dress as our berry basket and gave the berries an extra squeeze to help things along. She was really confused about the whole situation. “But, Mama! You are ruining my dress! You’re getting it so berry-y!”

 But, then I explained our little experiment to her. I told her that I needed her help making a mess so we could test out if this stuff could really take the mess out of our clothes. After that she got on board with mess-making pretty quickly. She even started deliberately smashing berries on her dress.

The photos make it seem like the dress was cleaner than it was, but I assure you there were plenty of smashed-in berry stains.

We washed this dress with the OxiClean Original for our test.

 We still needed to test out the OxiClean White Revive though, so I let Fern smash raspberries all over one of Clive’s bright white onesies. She thought that was a super fun job.

To be honest, I was a bit worried that the stains weren’t going to come out. I mean, I love me some OxiClean, but bright red berries and white are pretty much a recipe for disaster – especially since Fern did her very best to really grind those berries into the fabric. I certainly wouldn’t have faulted OxiClean if the job had just been too much for it. I’ve used OxiClean in the past to pre-soak clothes and it’s worked wonders. Recently I used it to soak a new dress of my daughter’s that she got orange popsicle on and then proceeded to hide for a week and it took out the stain like it was never there. But, I decided to forgo the presoak option to see how OxiClean would do on its own without an added boost. I was pretty nervous.

But, miracle of miracles…it worked! Seriously…wow. I am impressed.