Yellow stains that can be found on the underarms of once-nice white tee-shirts and blouses come from a mixture of both sweat and antiperspirant. The chemicals in the antiperspirant come together with the sweat coming from your skin to end up on your clothes. Then the sweat dries, and creates ugly, yellow stains.
And if you sweat a lot, like I do, you may have a problem. Why do you sweat? It could be for many reasons. Why do I sweat? I sweat when I get nervous. I sweat when I am stressed. I sweat when I am exercising, and I sweat when I know I have a shirt on I really like that is hugging my armpits and is soon to be permanently stained.
You can do few things about the yellow stains on your clothes. For instance, you could try taking your clothing to the cleaners. I have no personal experience with this method, but I have heard that the cleaners know specifically how to get rid of these types of stains.
However, this solution won’t work for cotton shirts. This is because once cotton shirts get yellowed over and over again, something permanently happens to the material that causes it to thin. It’s almost like washing your clothes with too much bleach. And if the underarm area doesn’t thin out, it goes from a yellow to a yellow-gray color. And I don’t think the cleaners know too much about all of that. I have personally experienced the ruining of many white cotton shirts.
Another thing you could try to do is stop using antiperspirants and begin to only use deodorants. You can use natural deodorants like Tom’s Naturals or Crystal Rock. You can also try using deodorants that aren’t so natural. They can be found at dollar stores. The only problem with these deodorants is that they don’t prevent you from sweating a lot like anti-perspirants do so if knowing that wetness is under your arms is uncomfortable for you, this is probably not the solution for you.
Then there are the antiperspirants on the market that are clinically proven not to make you sweat. These are Certain Dri, and others. Secret makes one as well. Certain Dri works quite well, and I would recommend it for anyone. It’s a little more expensive than most antiperspirants though. It costs about $5.00 with tax.
You can also buy dress shields. Men and women use these. They can be purchased from sites like comfywear.com. These work great but there is one problem. These dress shields are like little undershirts, so you will feel like you are wearing an extra layer of clothing. A woman who likes little lacy tops or thin silky delicate shirts may have a problem.
There is a last resort though for people who don’t want to wear extra clothing underneath their what they already have on. But it takes some planning.
The night before you go to work or school, pick out what you are going to wear. Then open up a bottle of Certain Dri and put in on right before you go to sleep. Wake up in the morning and wear your shirt. You might still sweat though, but not a lot. If you’re still worried about your shirt what you have to do is after you finished wearing the shirt, take it off and throw it in the washing machine. Unfortunately, you have to do this with all of the clothes that you know you have sweated in.
So if you find that you went to school and forgot to put on your Certain Dri at night, come home and put that shirt in the washing machine immediately. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it’s the price we pay not to waste money on shirt after shirt that just gets ruined with yellow stains.
