My children put Tide to the test for the #MyMessMyTide challenge

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Tide and Jewel-Osco. Tide supplied the detergent for this challenge. I have been compensated for this post. All opinions about Tide and Jewel-Osco are my own.

By now you’ve probably seen all of the new varieties of Tide Plus on the shelves at Jewel-Osco and other stores. Tide asked bloggers to put its new Tide Plus detergents to the test, and I couldn’t think of a better way to do this than to enlist the help of the chief mess-makers in the Cataldo household, my 6-year-old and 9-year-old sons!

I asked my boys to each bring a clean white T-shirt to the table, and I gave them the instruction to mess up each shirt with anything they could find in the refrigerator that they thought would stain their clothes. After they were done, I brought a few more hard-to-clean items out too to add to the challenge.

The stains:

– RoseArt washable markers in orange and green
– Hunt’s Ketchup
– Smuckers Natural Concord Grape Fruit Spread
– Silver Swan Soy Sauce
– UBet Chocolate Syrup
– Garland Jack’s Hickory Barbecue Sauce
– Pillsbury Holiday frosting in Green Vanilla (Told you we cleaned out the fridge for this project! How long has this been in there?!)

And Mom’s picks:

– CoverGirl Lipstick in #305 “Hot Passion”
– CoverGirl Power Volume Collagen Mascara in #676 “Black”
– Kiwi Black Shoe Polish
– Quaker State 5W30 motor oil (New from the bottle, not used from the car. While that might have been more of a test, I wasn’t about to send my boys out in 15-degree weather to get the dipstick from my truck.)

As you can imagine, they had great fun getting these shirts nice and dirty…

(What kid wouldn’t want to do this? They had a blast!)

As you can see, not only did they label all of their stains for you, they also used different techniques to work the stains into the fabric. From the “Rorschach Inkblot” to the “Fingertip Grind,” they made sure these shirts were truly covered in stains.

We left the shirts sit for 15 minutes so the many substances on the shirts had a chance to set.

The messy shirts went into the washing machine, along with a capful of Tide Ultra Stain Release. We did not use any stain pretreaters or bleach.

(Eagle-eyed readers will also notice that one of my sons switched pajama shirts halfway through the dirty-the-shirts process..! After his shirt accidentally also received a squirt of chocolate syrup, it too went in the machine.)

I set our front-loader Kenmore washer to the “Whitest Whites” cycle, which is a 1 hour, 30 minute wash time in hot water. Just four minutes into the cycle, my kids were trying to peek through the window to see how clean their shirts were! “Okay, okay,” I said, and we opened the door…

Wow! Nearly all of the food stains were already invisible. The chocolate syrup, lipstick and black shoe polish are still visible, and I suspected the latter two would be challenging to remove in the wash.

The same stains were still visible on the second shirt — but again, this was four minutes into the wash cycle! We closed the door and let the cycle complete. An hour and a half later…

 

And, for comparison, the original photo:

 

I was actually pretty impressed that the food stains came out, especially the chocolate syrup and soy sauce. Even the motor oil and mascara disappeared from these shirts. Only the lipstick and shoe polish remained, and I wasn’t terribly surprised — any woman who’s tried to wash red lipstick off at the end of the night can tell you that it’s difficult to scrub off your face, let alone clothing.

And, shoe polish is meant to withstand wear, weather and water — though some of it did wash out. However, I figured these were also two realistic stains that conceivably could get on someone’s clothing accidentally, so I wanted to see if they’d come out with another wash.

Tide sent over samples of all of their new Tide Plus varieties, so I decided to try the Tide with Bleach Alternative next. This time, I poured some directly on the stains and scrubbed it in with my fingertips.

I could already see the Tide lifting some of the lipstick, as the red stain was migrating through the liquid I’d poured on the stain. Back into the machine they went for another wash cycle — again, with no pretreaters or bleach…

 

Well, that’s much better!

I was really surprised most of the shoe polish came out too! There is only a slight grey mark where it used to be. The lipstick stain is gone, but a little of the lipstick appears to have migrated to the shirt thread in the wash. Still, it’s only visible close up, and I was pretty impressed considering what these shirts looked like earlier in the evening.

As soon as we finished our challenge, my husband said “You should have tried coffee!” My mom said “You should have tried an ink pen. Or wine!” 

 

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Now, want a chance to win a pretty cool Tide prize? Jewel-Osco has a new My Mess, My Tide” contest running on Facebook! Enter for a chance to win a new HE washer and dryer and a year’s supply of Tide!

And, here’s a sale that everyone can enjoy. From March 2nd through March 11th at Jewel-Osco, buy 92-100oz. Tide and and two Downy, Bounce, Unstopables or Tide Oxi products (mix and match) and get $5 instant savings at the register! Prices at Jewel 3/2-3/11: Tide 92-100oz. – $11.99 Downy liquid 48-60 – $3.99 Bounce 90-105ct. sheets – $4.99 Downy Unstopables 13.2oz. – $5.99 Tide Oxi stain remover 108 load – $8.99

 

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Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Tide and Jewel-Osco. Tide supplied the detergent for this challenge. I have been compensated for this post. All opinions about Tide and Jewel-Osco are my own.