Getting grease stains out of a silk t-shirt

I think I've mentioned in a couple of blogs that I ruined my grey t-shirt quite early in the challenge.

At the age of 35 you would hope that I could eat a chicken without getting the skin on me. And if I can't live up to the standards of mess free eating expected of a 5 year old you'd at least hope I'd spot it soon enough to prevent permanent damage.

But nope on both counts.

I did manage to attach some greasy skin to my tshirt, and then popped it in the linen bin without noticing which meant it was a week before I realised my mistake. And in that week the grease and my t-sirt had a bit of a love affair, resulting in a grease stain right on the boob. Because of how pale this tshirt was this basically made the bloody thing unwearable - or at least unwearable to work. And what with only having 4 tshirts at the moment - I cannot afford for even 1 to be out of action.

So I asked around for getting rid of grease suggestions. I was kind of amazed at the response - some of my most unlikely friends had suggestions handed down from grandparents that they swore worked (and perhaps would have done on a less established stain). I tried pretty much everything suggested (except where some of my less trustworthy friends suggested that I just buy an identical new one - CHEATS). Unfortunately nothing worked.

So instead I dyed it.There are some super lovely dyed silk t-shirts out there - take this insanely expensive example from Harvey Nicks.


I considered trying to do this with mine - but honestly I can't risk ruining this tshirt so in the end I chickened out (see what I did there?). At went for a simple single colour dye job.

The whole thing took an hour and less than £10 of materials. 

So here's the stuff I used

First I had to dilute the dye

Then add it to salted water

Then add in the T-shirt for 60 minutes. Stirring loads.

Before

After!

I'm pretty pleased with the result. I actually prefer the new colour to the origianal. ( though predictably first time I wore it I spilt noodles down it but ho hum!)
























What this has taught me is that I either need to eat more carefully, or make a bib one of my items !

If you want to encourage me to keep going with this (I have 10 months left and as you can probably tell I'm super clumsy so this'll be a proper challenge!) you can sponsor me. It's for a very good cause!