Pit Stains on Your White Tee? Don’t Sweat It. We Can Help.

Stop dillydallying

Don’t let dirty white tees languish in the laundry basket; the longer you wait, the more likely it is that stains will set and be difficult to remove. Staff writer Andrea Barnes, Wirecutter’s in-house laundry expert, recommends washing garments (especially badly stained ones) within one week of wear.

Begin by pretreating any discolored areas with a stain remover or liquid laundry detergent. For this project, Andrea likes Zout or Tide Free & Gentle Liquid Laundry Detergent. Apply it as soon as you can—ideally, right after the stain occurs—according to its instructions. The longer the treatment has to penetrate, the better, but some stain removers require washing garments within 15 minutes to prevent fabric damage.

Before tossing your laundry in the machine, be sure to separate lights from darks—darker garments can release dyes during washing that can transfer onto your whites. (In particular, watch out for reds and anything dark or colorful that hasn’t been washed yet; I say this from bitter personal experience.)

For maximum cleaning power, use a high-quality detergent—it does make a difference. For pit stains, Andrea recommends Tide Ultra Oxi Powder Laundry Detergent, Tide Free & Gentle Liquid Laundry Detergent, or Persil Original Liquid Detergent Everyday Clean. All three are picks in our guide to the best laundry detergent and top performers in our stain-removal tests.

Select the right cycle

Always check your garment’s care label—and consider its material and fit—before selecting your wash cycle. When you’re washing sweat stains, it’s best to select the warmest water possible for your item, as warm water breaks down body oils better than cold. In our personal experience with white tees, a warm wash strikes the right balance of getting the job done without running the risk of shrinking garments. (Just a heads-up: In our tests, we have found that new, all-cotton T-shirts—even if they’re preshrunk—shrink by about 3% after the first laundering; a good deal of that is caused by the heat of the dryer rather than by the wash, but we avoid scalding-hot water anyway to err on the side of caution.)

You may want to put your shirt in the dryer after washing it. We recommend making sure stains are completely gone first; the high heat of tumble drying tends to set any stains, making them harder (or even impossible) to get out. For anything that’s been heavily soiled, air-drying is the smarter bet—you can avoid unwittingly locking in any lingering stains, and air-drying is easier on fabrics.