Use 2 simple ingredients to get white socks ‘fresh as new’ again

There is an easy way you can make dirty socks white again by using two simple ingredients.

Anyone who wears white socks will be familiar with how difficult it can be to clean them and keep them looking as fresh as when they were first bought. White clothes in general can be more challenging to clean once they have been made dirty by stains, mud or something else.

Jess Eatonn has taken to TikTok to share her cleaning hack for white socks. She uses Milton Sterilising Fluid and the Formil Oxi Action Fabric Stain Remover.

Speaking in the video showing her white socks before and after cleaning them, she said: “Anyone who wears white socks will know that keeping them white is the hardest thing in the world. I’m going to show you how to take them from the first clip to this and it’s really easy.

“All you’re going to need is this Milton Sterilising Fluid and some form of Vanish. It can be a cheap version like I’ve got and then you’re going to want to put them in a bath.”

As Jess doesn’t have a bath in her home, she used her toddler bath. She put the white socks and all the other clothes she wanted to turn white into the bath submerged with water and advised to use hot water preferably.

Next, the mum added two spoonfuls of the stain remover and two cup fulls of the sterilising fluid before mixing the clothes around with her hand and then leaving everything in the bath to soak “for a good few hours.” She left hers in four hours and after this she took the socks and clothes from the bath and put them in the washing machine on a normal 30 degrees wash cycle.

The result was bright white clean socks. Sockshop has given some guidance on its website on how to get white socks white again.

It shared a few things you can do to care for your white socks to help them stay white for longer, including not wearing them for more than one day and washing them regularly, being careful not to rub socks too vigorously as this can damage their shape and Sockshop claims that soaking your socks before washing is often the “most effective way to banish stubborn dirt.” Also, it says to remember to always wash your white socks separately from coloured clothing and points out that the material of your socks should inform which cleaning method you use.

Sockshop suggests using household ingredients like baking soda, lemon juice, laundry soap, water or vinegar to clean white socks. One method it shared is soaking the socks in a warm sink filled with a “liberal sprinkling of baking soda for several hours” and after wringing them dry, putting them in your washing machine by adding 150 200 ml of baking soda to the detergent drawer, along with your normal powder or liquid.

Jess’s TikTok video sharing her white socks cleaning hack has garnered 146,800 views, 2,162 likes and dozens of comments, at the time of writing. One user said: “This is in the information I came to the internet for today, tortured with my teenagers wearing those white Nike socks everywhere, thank you my love.”

Another added: “Need to try this. I’ve used vanish but the Milton is a good shout.” Others left comments such as “oh wow what a good hack!”, “definitely going to try this!” and “oh I needed to know this, ours are awful.”