While I never bought into the concern about "Ring Around The Collar", I do make an attempt to remove stains. I can't say that I've tried all of these products but my solution to stains has been cheap, readily avaliable, and quite satisfactory. I keep a dish detergent bottle (the kind with the pull up top) in which I put about 1 ounce of my favorite liquid laundry detergent. I then half fill the bottle with plain ordinary amonia and top up the other half with tap water. All stains get a little squirt of this liquid. It's especially effective on blood (even older stains will come out), coffee, some grease, and most other drips and spots that I accumulate in a day. Grease/oil, especially on polyester or mixed blend fabric is more problematic. On white fabrics, a quick squirt of the above mix, plus a few swipes with a damp corner of a bar of Don Maximo works well. On colors, usually I spray with Spot Shot Carpet Stain Remover, then cover that with my mix. Please note, I usually do not scrub the spots or even just rub the fabric together. Amonia is great stuff but be careful not to mix it with anything that contains clorine bleach. The combination and the fumes it gives off can be deadly. It's not an issue at my house since my liquid detergent is bleach free and I rarely add bleach to the wash (mostly because I end up getting it on the clothes I'm wearing when I do use it). One last little trick. I keep a small plastic syringe (sans needle) for those stains on white tee shirts that just don't come out. Suck up a little bleach into the syringe and then, very carefully, squeeze it onto the stain. Gee - my own little stain pen. Carefully roll up the tee shirt so that the bleached spot doesn't touch any colored material. Push it into the wash water still rolled up so that the bleach will be diluted before it has a chance to damage other colored clothing. I learned about the power of amonia reading a WWI navy corpsman handbook back when I was a teenager. It's cheap, available, but you may have to look for it since it's gone out of style (very top shelf or very bottom shelf at the grocery store).

I find clear shampoo also works well. I had a few pesky stains while I was in college that came right out with that, even after sitting in my hamper for a few days.

2 really good tips i know are:

FOR RED WINE stains: pour hydrogen peroxide in a 2:1 ratio with water in a bowl, add a squirt of dish detergent(like palmolive or joy) swirl around and soak the stain in it for like 10 minutes. i swear it works, i got it out of a white shirt 1 wk later.

FOR PENMARKS: spray it with hairspray( i know it's so wrong but i use the aerosol kind -only for this exact purpose) let it dry and then put it in the wash as usual. got this tip from someone in the wholesale clothing business.

i'd love a good suggestion for getting out chocolate stains!

I use to pride myself on removing any stain...........not any more.

GREAT TIPS ,guys.Thanks for the info.

NOW, what abt cleaning tubs and showers??

Only thing I can move the grime with is Comet and a Dobbie or Mr Clean sponge thingy..or dynamite.Why is this? Why nothing? I usually sand paper it off with Comet.Really a hands on job.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~