Getting Rid of Ring Around the Collar

Really Bad Ring Around the Collar!

Mr. Pennies brought out a couple of shirts he wanted to wear over the holidays that had the same problem, the dreaded ring around the collar. Oh, no! What to do?

I found quite a list of tips at Tips N Tricks 4 Moms.  My first choice was to try Dawn liquid dish detergent. Happily it worked! So I didn’t have to go to my next choice which was to use one of the degreasers that they sell at auto parts stores. They are made for  cleaning greasy hands of mechanics. That kind is pretty strong and might discolor fabrics that are not white. I had one white shirt and one beige shirt–and they didn’t look anywhere near as bad as the one pictured here.

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PLEASE WEAR GLOVES WHILE USING DAWN LIQUID DISH DETERGENT AS IT CONTAINS A CHEMICAL THAT COULD BE ROUGH ON THE SKIN.

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I applied a heavy layer of straight Dawn and then used a wet toothbrush (old one) to scrub it in a little bit. It didn’t want to scrub too much in case it would damage the fabric. The cloth is oxford cloth that is a little bit tough. Using a brush is supposed to be better than rubbing the fabric against itself as that might just spread the grease.

I let this soak for about 3 or 4 hours adding more Dawn and brushing it in a bit more a couple of times. Then I washed the shirts in hot water in the washing machine. They came out perfect. If you have fabric that can’t take hot water, try warm water.

With this success under my belt I tried the Dawn treatment on a knit shirt of mine that was cotton/polyester.  I had to give it the treatment twice since I could only use warm water. If that hadn’t worked, my next line of defense was to try powdered white chalk to soak up the grease. Not sure if that would work or not.  Anybody tried that?

What are your favorite stain removers for grease?  By the way, getting ring around the collar comes from body oils, but even taking 3 showers a day can’t prevent it totally. So don’t feel bad about getting this dreaded condition. You’re only human!