12 easy tips for cleaning tough messes

Feb. 16, 2015, 12:31 p.m.

There are some household items that always seem impossible to clean, no matterhow many times you wash or scrub them.

There are some household items that always seem impossible to clean, no matter how muchyou wash or scrub them.

Instead of wasting your elbow grease next time, try some of these tricks to get those hard-to-clean items spotless with minimum effort.

For the whitest whites, one blogger suggests mixing equal parts laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, and half the amount of borax (a cleaning agent you can find at the supermarket) with the hottest water possible.

Soak your whites in the mixture for a couple of hours, then without rinsing them throw them in the washing machine and run a hot cycle.

For extra-tough stains or yellowed whites, you can also add bleach to the potent mix.

You use them everyday, but chances are you never wash them and simply throw them away when they start to smell musty.

Instead of tossing them out, clean them using the same mix of cleaning agents for whites, but add the cleaning combo to the pillows only after you are sure they're completely soaked in water.

Despite the fact that washing machines exist only to clean, they do get dirty. Luckily, it's easy to give your machine a thorough clean.

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12 easy tips for cleaning tough messes