Chefs Wear White: Stain Removal 101

Somewhere between mankind’s harnessing of fire and Escoffier, it was decided that people who work with food should wear white. (Personally, I suspect it was the influence of a corrupt laundry cartel, but I can’t prove it.) Consequently, we culinary students spend a surprising amount of time discussing stain removal.

At this point, I should probably mention this is not a sponsored post. Nobody’s paying me to talk about this (unless they want to, I’m certainly not above that – just sayin’). It’s the stuff I actually use, personally.

Bleach: the beet-chopper’s best friend. Or so you’d think. In general, bleach is good for spot treatments, if you have a load to soak, it’ll do most of the job and it’s super cheap, which is always a good fit for a student budget. However, eventually your whites start looking more yellowish than white and that bleach smell stays in your clothes. In fact it can get pretty overwhelming and not just a little distracting.

For spot-treatments, I prefer Resolve. In my opinion, it does a better job than bleach, won’t turn your whites yellow and it doesn’t overwhelm the olfactory.

When I have to do a bigger load that’s in rough shape, I turn to OxiClean for a long soak. We just completed two weeks of chocolate work in pastry class and I’m pretty sure I got the stuff on just about everything I own. I even managed to find some on my hats! OxiClean is a solid product; white whites, doesn’t stink and it’s a killer stain remover. Not terribly budget friendly though; it’s a bit on the pricier side.

As I said, these are just my opinions. Whether you have a favourite brand name or stick to the bargain bleach, I’m sure you’ll find what works best for you… what I can say with absolute certainty though is that there is only one thing on earth that will get turmeric out of your whites:

(Photos via Google images)