Chapstick In the Laundry: The Worst Day of Your Life

Forgetting to check pockets for chapstick before laundry day never turns out well. In fact, it's a bit of a double tragedy- Shakespearean, almost. As you pull out your melted chapstick-spotted favorite jeans or t-shirt, it's hard not to also grieve over the loss of your favorite tube. You can never get back the latter, unfortunately, but there are ways to restore your clothes to their former pre-petroleum glory.

Common sense might lead you to believe that if you simply wash the clothes again you'll get rid of the stains. But think about what you're contending with: chapstick is nothing more than a tube of pure oil. Even the ones without petroleum are made with sunflower seed oil, jojoba oil, shea bitter and various other emollients, to say nothing of the added artificial colors and waxes. This ain't your fried chicken grease on your blouse stain, and most commercial detergents aren't strong enough to get them all out. Plus, it's really the dryer that melted the chapstick and caused the mess to set in the first place, and once stains have been set by heat there's usually no going back. So if you notice there are stains after the wash cycle- don't put them in the dryer!

But where there's a will there's a way. Only really strong de-greasers can do the job, and if you want to avoid a hundred cycles of washing, you'll go for the good stuff.

1. Dry Cleaning: I don't know what they use, but that crazy no water voodoo usually works. It also costs dinero, so you may choose to live with chapstick-stained socks. You can also buy a dry cleaning fluid or kit and try it yourself.

2. Dishwashing Liquid: Not too far-fetched. If Dawn can get the baked in oil off of my five year old brownie baking tray, I have faith.

3. A hard core de-greaser like DeSolveIt solvent. I haven't used it myself, but it's citrus-based and apparently it's "the safer way to remove adhesives, tar, asphalt, road and roofing tar, oil-based paint and more from nearly any surface, including skin and hair". I'm guessing it can get out chapstick.

3.5 If the color doesn't come off, bleach it out.

4. I found a strange suggestion here about using hairspray. The poster says, "put a dry cloth underneath the stain; spray hairspray directly on the stain (liberally); and take another dry cloth (white) and dab on the stain. Have to do it over and over, but it works if you have the patience." I have no patience, and adding another sticky, oily substance doesn't sound like the way to go. But if you're pressed for time, whip out the Aquanet.

5. If the splotches are the right consistency, you can try to remove them as you would a wax stain: freeze with an ice cube and chip off.

6. Accept your loss like this guy did.