Life was busy this week. When I am busy I get rushed, when I am rushed accidents happen, and when accidents happen it makes me have to slow down and take care of the accident. This makes for even less time than I started with. So why do I rush around in the first place if I know it leads to trouble? Good question, we try to keep life as simplified as possible around here but there are days when everything happens at once and I just have to make due with the time I am given.
This usually translates to me trying to multi-task with my toddlers and little baby, (ie. making granola bars with two little people who mainly just want to eat the ingredients, mommy trying to stir the coconut butter that has separated and a baby who decided she now wants to be nursed/held.) All necessities in my little family right now and when properly timed it can all be enjoyable, just not all at once. In the frenzy I caught my spoon on a hard piece of coconut butter solids on the bottom of the jar causing me to spill the oil all over my shirt and skirt. Of course, as life would have it, I forgot to put on my apron before setting out to make the granola bars so here we have the aftermath.
My initial gut reaction to a spill/stain is to always flush it with cold water, so that is what I did. However that is really not a great idea for oil stains as oil and water don't mix. So then what do you do for pulling up the excess oil? Why you heap on some baby powder or corn starch to soak it all up out of the fabric.
I let mine sit on for 15-20 min before shaking it off out side. I could see where the oil was but it wasn't as noticeable, step in the right direction.
The next thing I did was to put some dawn dish soap, that I have on hand to strip my diapers, on the spots and scrub in the fabric with an old toothbrush. You want to break down the oil so any de-greasing dish soap will do. My one year old loved this part, he went a little over board with the dish soap but it didn't hurt anything. Who knew cleaning up mommy's messes would be so fun!
Now I just threw them in the wash on my hot/cold setting as it is best for a oil stain to be washed in the hot to "melt" the oil. I just used my homemade detergent.
After being in the wash I hung the clothes out to dry on the line. You wouldn't want to run them through the dryer as it can set the stain if not all of it has come out. Here is how they turned out after treatment.
Yay no oil marks! I hate when clothing gets ruined, I always feel like I didn't try hard enough to save it. Now I know I can just throw some baby powder on my oil stains when we are away from home. I love when something in my diaper bag is multi use!
So while it did take some extra time out of my day I discovered a new way to deal with oil stains and my kids had fun helping mommy. I guess it was not all that bad of an accident anyway.
The Farmer in the Dell
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