Greasy clothes

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Hubby works in a restaurant with lots of fried food. His work clothes are coated with cooking oil and grease from the fryers. I've tried using a stain remover for the bit parts, combining it with my detergent (Purex). That works for the small stains, but the fabric is so saturated that it feels slimy even just out of the washer.

This is my first combat with kitchen grease this bad. How can I get it out of his clothes? Will using Dawn with the Purex help any or will the combo create a sitcom of soap suds pouring from a washing machine? What about Goop and Lava? They work for engine grease. Any tips would be welcome.

 

Dawn is meant to have considerable foaming action -- this could cause problems with your dishwasher (and floor). I believe there is a stain remover by Goop, I wouldn't recommend the hand cleaner for the laundry.

I worked for a long time in restaurants and only used Tide detergent with the occasional stain removers, it worked just fine (I think most good, heavy duty detergents will work well). Use the maximum temperature the clothing will allow -- hot water works wonders on grease. Use a soak cycle if you can and use about 50% more detergent than you normally would.

Oh yes, you may want to wash his work clothes by themselves -- you don't want all your clothes smelling and feeling like that.

 

At my old accounting firm one of our clients ran a slaughter house and our staff had similar problems although it was probably worse for them given that they were wearing wool suits and as such their cleaning options were pretty limited.

I never got stuck with that job but pretty much everyone who did had to have one suit that they kept only for that client. There was just no way that they could ever get it clean again.

One of the partners kept his "slaughter house suit" in a small metal garden shed out in his backyard to keep the smell out of the house and prevent his other clothes from being exposed to the greasy residue.

 

Heat will begin to break up the proteins in the grease. Add heavy-duty detergent and you shouldn't have a problem. If you do, try soaking it in anti-grease dish soap in the sink, with hot water, and agitate it every once in a while. Then wash with hot water and heavy-duty detergent.

 

I'll try hot water and Tide. Didn't think about changing detergents, even though Tide will take chrome off a rusty bumper.

 

I've got a better idea: Make him do his own laundry

 

Make him wash them if he gets them in that mess!!

 

@saber and BA - He's a lazy schmoe. I didn't wash them for a long time, but the pants and shirts stank so bad!

The hot water+Tide worked the trick. Free cookies to all who helped.

 

Have you ever tried a mixture of 'Oxy-Clean' and your standard liquid detergent (i.e. Tide/All) and hot water? I use a full cup of the detergent, and several scoops of 'Oxy-Clean'.

Let your washing machine go through about 10 minutes of a normal cycle, then stop it and let it sit for about 15-20 minutes, then restart the washing maching back to the begining of a normal cycle and let it do its thing.

I used to work at Wendy's and then in a steel fabrication shop...so I know grease. That combo has gotten the most stubborn grease out of my clothes.