Problems in the laundry

I have been having mysterious spots appear in my washing and they have ruined virtually all of Astrid’s clothes. I specifically kept all the Nature Baby boxes in the hope of selling them – but only a few items have come through stain free.

I changed our washing powder six weeks ago and the spots vanished. My best friend also had the same problem. Again, she changed powders and the problem has gone.

The reason I’m writing today is that I sold the few baby clothes that were unaffected on TradeMe and for some reason said I only used that particular powder on them – so off I went and bought some yesterday, washed the clothes I had just sold – and hey presto – the brown stains are back.

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Ooh I was mad!!! Goodbye Trade Me money 🙁

Which led me to phone the company today. The junior guy says oh yeah heaps of people have had that problem. The owner says no – you’re the only person we’ve ever heard of with that problem and he’s coming to my house next week to investigate. (As it turns out the junior guy meant something else).

These are the same spots you get when you spill essential oil on fabric – but I know I’ve not been doing that. I thought it was my floral water – but the past few weeks have told me that isn’t true.

Have any of you had the same spots? This will only apply to kiwis (and possibly people in Oz) as it’s one of our brands. I would love to hear what brand you use and whether you have had problems or not.

Thanks so much!!


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14 responses to “Problems in the laundry”

  1. Steph avatar

    ohhh, what brand is it? It’s supposed to clean them, not do that!!

    I haven’t had any stain problems but I had a full body rash recently when I changed to an all organic powder so now I am stuck with the old highly chemical powder again.

  2. melissa avatar

    hmm, i haven’t had that problem- but i think i might know the brand you’re talking about. what a shame! will anything remove the stains- soaking, sunlight, etc?

  3. Ann avatar

    Hi Charlotte. Although I haven’t experienced the brown stains, I wasn’t happy with the performance of the washing powder recommended by Nature Baby and Fuzzy Buns. I thought it was my washing machine but it wasn’t. I went back to good ol’ persil and it’s great. Consumer magazine recently did some washing powder testing.

  4. shula avatar

    Distressing just to look at them.

  5. erin avatar

    i have never seen or heard of such a thing!

  6. jen avatar

    what a dam shame
    Id be upset too
    can you please let us know what the washing powder was
    hope the Damage control guy compensattes you
    otherwise Id be going to FairGo

  7. gigibird avatar

    it looks like rust spots to me. I have experienced this many years ago when I had a very old washing machine.
    Do you take your washing out as soon as it’s finished?
    I’m from England, but if it’s rust spots then it’s global:)
    The other thing it could be is if your clothes had been splashed with something that’s reacting with the chemicals in the washing powder.
    Over here you can get a Stain Devil for rust spots – it’s worth a go.

  8. Lori avatar

    oh no!! we had a similar problem this summer .. some new t-shirt or beach towel bled blue ink all over everything in the laundry. ok, that’s not good, but what can you do. then the spots showed up in the next load. and the next load. and the next load. ?!?!?!? i don’t know how the dye, or whatever, affected the washing machine so that it kept happening again and again, but it was **maddening**.

    good luck getting it figured out!!!

  9. charlotte avatar
    charlotte

    I’ve have checked both the washing machine and drier for any patches of rust as they are both only a couple of years old.

    The rust spots are exactly the same as what happens when you get essential oil on clothes – and this particular powder does contain essential oils.

    I tried sard wonder soap yesterday but that didn’t work. I shall have a look for Stain Devil.

    Thanks for your help!!

  10. kimberlee avatar

    washing troubles. arg
    my washing machine recently RIPPED HOLES in our clothes! and destroyed my favourite black t-shirt and a few pairs of socks.

    Thanks much for following up with this problem. NZ companies need to take better responsibility for their problematic products and services. Every fair issue raised helps up the standard. or so I would like to hope.
    -kimberlee

  11. Nicky avatar

    I had something similar, oh, must be 10 years ago when I was in Melbourne. Rust spots showed up on everything. I was so mad. I still don’t know what caused them, whether it was my hand-me-down machine or rust from the old water pipes.

    IIRC I took to filling my top-loader washing machine once and emptying before putting any clothes in and I think it helped. I don’t think I changed washing powder (I was using Cold Power at the time).

    Sorry, not much help here, but I did want to say I empathised. Good luck wrestling Damage Control Guy into submission!

  12. Yvonne avatar

    You know what I just thought Charlotte? I thought, Charlotte is such a nice woman and her photos make me happy and she’s a person I’d really love to meet one day but I’m going to give up and deal with the fact that I’m never going to be able to visit her site. I must live with it, I must go on …

    I SURRENDER!!

    So I clicked on your link like I do every day, but this time for the last time, and what do you know…

    IT’S THERE … IT’S F****** THERE!!

    I’M HERE!!!

    This is such a good news .. oh Happy Day!!

    I do not even have an answer to your washing problems because I now have to explore all your previous post. God I feel like I’m a Cath Kidston and the world around me suddenly stands still.

  13. Sarah avatar

    Not a Kiwi, but that really does look like rust. Here we have a brilliant rust removal product that STINKS but it takes that out in a matter of minutes. Maybe you have something similiar?

    (Hard to imagine a chemical reaction between water and essential oils and a washer that causes that though….quite a stumper.)

  14. Vicki Higham avatar
    Vicki Higham

    Hi there.
    My partner and I are having the same problem at the moment. Do you know where they came from now? Do you still get them?

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