How to Whiten Clothes With Lemon Juice

I Started Adding Lemon Juice to My Washing Machine — Here's Why & How It's Going

When my married man and I moved concluding twelvemonth, we left behind the array of towels and sheets I'd been using since college and started fresh. I've always wanted a pantry full of all-whites — both sheets and towels — and I finally had my chance. I feared they'd be impossible to keep make clean, but the internet assured me they would, in fact, be easier to keep clean than colored linens (hullo, bleach!), so we took the plunge.

The matter is, though, I wanted to avoid bleach. Mostly for the surround'south sake, but as well considering I've just always been afraid to employ information technology. And then I sought out natural alternatives even earlier our new whites lost their luster. I stocked up on baking soda, vinegar, and lots of lemons — yep, lemons. I'd read that lemons can naturally whiten and brighten whites, so I was prepared to give it a go. Is it working a year-and-a-half in? Here'south what you need to know.

What Adding Lemon Juice to Your Laundry Will Do

If you've e'er tried soaking your hair in lemon juice in the summer, you lot know information technology will lighten it. That'southward considering of the citric acid in lemons, which acts as a bleaching agent. And that'southward why lemon juice is said to practise the same in the laundry — lighten stains and get whites back to white. It's not a color-safe bleach alternative, notwithstanding, every bit information technology could fade colors.

To use lemon juice on whites, you tin either fill a large bucket with hot water and virtually ane/2 loving cup lemon juice and allow the whites to soak overnight or your can add the lemon juice directly to the laundry machine. Pour i/four to i/2 cup lemon juice in either the bleach dispenser, if your laundry machine has i, or if it doesn't, to the launder water with the detergent earlier adding your whites.

Does Information technology Work?

Yes and no. I've institute that lemon juice does indeed get rid of some of the dinginess in my white towels and sheets, but it doesn't necessarily work any better than other bleach alternatives I've tried like blistering soda, vinegar, and hydrogen peroxide. The latter are all easier to do, every bit you do need to squeeze two to three lemons to get enough juice. And lemons aren't cheap these days! Three lemons for one load of laundry costs well-nigh $2, while a v-pound handbag of blistering soda costs under $4 just lasts for months of regular loads.

I perk of lemon juice, however, is that information technology does lend an extra clean, lemony smell to my sheets and towels. No bleach alternatives have yet to become my whites dorsum to complete original state, and so I am even so very much on the hunt for ane that does, but for now I'll go on to apply lemon juice when I've run out of another culling or just have some lemons to go rid of.

Practise you have a favorite bleach culling? How exercise you lot get your whites white?

Sheela Prakash

Senior Contributing Food Editor

Sheela is the Senior Contributing Food Editor at Kitchn and the writer of Mediterranean Every Day: Elementary, Inspired Recipes for Experience-Expert Nutrient . She received her primary'south degree from the Academy of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy and is also a Registered Dietitian.

Follow Sheela