Removing Crayon from Clothes

I was feeling quite motivated one day this week and was kicking some serious butt where laundry was concerned. I was almost to the end of it all when I went to take one load out of the dryer when it happened. I could see that the entire load of clothes was speckled with blue ink. UGGGHHHHH! I figured that I had missed a pocket in hubby's work shirt (those army shirts have 45 or something pockets, I must have missed one or two... And there was a little pen spring in the lint trap so that was the last clue.

I headed to the hairspray, and I sprayed all of the affected clothes (can I just say that most of it was new boys' new summer buys .. grrr..). I ran out of spray and I had to run out to the store and grab another! Anyhow, I got all the clothes sprayed and threw them in the wash. Easy right? Because hairspray takes ink out of clothes! Hooray!  They wouldn't all be ruined! 

When the wash was done, I went to switch over to the dryer and I realized that a lot of the blue ink was still there.... WHAT!? And that's when I saw it. The blue crayon wrapper. It was staring right at me. OH NO!  I was wrong about the ink. Some child of mine must have had a crayon in his pocket (and I never check their pockets because I figure they are 5 & 6, like what would they be putting in their little pockets??).

I was so sad, because as I mentioned above, a lot of this laundry was brand spanking new stuff for summer. It was probably being washed for the first or second time! I got on google immediately and searched for ways to remove this crayon from all the clothes. Not too many solutions out there. I found a few but they all included about 7 steps and a lot of products that I didn't have on hand. So I decided to try out some things I had laying around. The clothes were ruined anyway, right? Why not give it a shot? 

So without further rambling, here is how I got the crayon out of all (but three articles) of the clothes.


Removing Crayon from Clothing (after its been washed & dried in!)


Step 1 - Spray all the spots with hairspray. Although this step didn't take all the stains off, if certainly removed some and so I would do it again if this ever happened. 

Step 2 - Run through a regular cycle in washing machine with regular detergent.

Step 3 - Spray any remaining spots with stain remover. I used Resolve, but I'm sure any stain remover would work.

Step 4 - Add 1/2 cup of Borax to the washing machine & run through a HOT cycle.

That's it! This removed all of the crayon stains except on three items. I think it might have to do with the types of fabric. I'm not entirely sure so I'm still working on those. Really I should just give up. Its just that two of them are brand new shorts and that makes me sad. But YAY for saving the rest of it! I am pleased and will from now on I will be checking the boys' pockets before starting the machine!