Yes. The title is not a joke. Motherhood has introduced me to a slew of situations that I never in my wildest dreams thought about happening to me.

This process was not fun but it is not the end of the world. If this has happened to you and you found my post on Google – THERE IS HOPE!  Don’t beat yourself up for not noticing the crayons in your laundry. It sucks, but it is fixable! If this hasn’t happened to you – read and be warned. Always, always, ALWAYS – no matter how busy you are – ALWAYS LOOK THROUGH YOUR KID’S LAUNDRY! Just because you don’t allow crayons in their room doesn’t mean they won’t find their way into your laundry basket.

It was a busy day. I had a long to-do list and decided to start with one of my least favorite tasks: laundry. I haphazardly dumped the contents of my daughter’s full laundry basket into the washing machine and set it to wash. About an hour later, I rushed down again to throw the clothes into the dryer feeling like I had accomplished so much that day!

And I had. I had been cleaning the house, organizing, and neatening our storage room which I’ve been meaning to get to for months. It was a very productive Tuesday. However, that feeling of accomplishment completely fizzled when I asked my husband if he could grab the clothes out of the dryer downstairs. Within a minute my phone was buzzing, he was calling me. “Hm, weird,” I thought. I picked up the phone…

“Um something got ruined in the laundry. There are rainbow colors everywhere.”

I immediately felt rage towards Walmart. I had recently gotten Julia a sweater there with rainbow-colored applique that was a plastic-like material. It didn’t say you couldn’t put it in the dryer. I was convinced it has melted and made a big mess. I was so angry! I ran down there and immediately searched for the Walmart sweater. It was…not melted. The sweater wasn’t the culprit after all. However, it did have bright yellow and orange streaks of color on it. I was very confused.

I wasn’t sure what was worse. The stains all over Julia’s entire fall wardrobe or the stains all over the inside of the dryer. Panicking but trying to remain calm (because at this point Julia was saying “Oh no mommy’s crying” lol 😐 ) I threw all the clothes into the basket and we all went back upstairs since it was almost bath time and there was no point standing around the dryer wondering what happened.

As bath water ran, I began pulling out and inspecting all the clothes when I found it. Inside of a horrendously stained pair of footie pajamas was…the hard wrapper remains of a melted black crayon. Not long after, I found a yellow, orange, red, and green crayon of similar condition. There were crayons in her footie pajamas. And they melted in the dryer.  *Insert numerous expletives here*

My husband’s concern was mostly over our dryer. A quick google search told me that all my problems could be potentially solved (although not easily) and I didn’t need a new dryer. A relief.

I tried a bunch of different things with the clothes and I didn’t have a complete success. I did have to get rid of a few things. But I was able to save more than I had to get rid of.

Disastrous storytime behind us…

How to get melted crayon out of your dryer and clothes!

Dryer

The dryer was surprisingly more simple to fix than the clothes. It took a lot of elbow grease and a few hours but Magic Erasers saved the day. They TRULY are magical.

…
Steps to cleaning crayon stained dryer with Magic Erasers
*Make sure you wear rubber cleaning gloves throughout the entire process of cleaning your dryer and the clothes*

–> Get a rag or towel of a light color that you are ok with getting stained and soak it in water and detergent.

–>  Squeeze out excess water and throw the rag into your dryer for about 10 minutes.
The key here is to heat up your dryer so that the crayon wax can loosen up making your cleaning process easier.

–> Once the 10 minutes are over you can remove the rag or towel and begin using your magic eraser to clean off the crayon stains. It will take a lot of elbow grease, but it works.

I will say that our biggest problem was that one of the crayons was BLACK. The black crayon stains are a lot harder to get out than other colors. Thankfully it did come out though. Magic Erasers are your best friend here!

Clothes

You will need Oxi Clean Laundry Stain Remover Spray, a scrubbing brush, laundry detergent.

*Don’t forget to wear cleaning gloves!*
…

I was really upset about Julia’s clothes. It was her entire fall wardrobe. Some things I knew were ruined immediately such as the pajamas with the black crayon stains on them as well as anything else the black crayon got on.

Oxi Clean has been my go-to product for stains in the past so naturally, it was my first step. I used up an entire bottle of the Oxi Clean spray on the stained clothes and let it soak overnight.

The next day I filled my bathroom sink with hot water and tried to scrub out the crayon. For some items that only had minor amounts of yellow or orange stains on them, this method worked. But for most of the clothes, especially items with black stains on them – this didn’t cut it.

Everything I saw online suggested washing it in a hot water cycle with detergent. But our washing machine is unable to connect to hot water. So I made the decision to fill my bathtub with hot water and detergent and hand wash. Every. Single. Item. Ugh. But It worked for the most part. I was able to save *most* of the clothes and only lost about 5 items – all of those items had black crayon on them. The only things that were not saveable had black crayon stains. So if a black crayon is not your culprit – you should be able to get all of the stains out with some elbow grease!

–> Pre-treat stained clothes with Oxy Clean Fabric Spray. Soak overnight.

–> Wash the clothes in HOT water with detergent.

–> Use a laundry brush to scrub out the crayon stains. Take your time with this step to make sure you are getting the stain out and not just spreading it. If you scrub too fast you risk spreading the stain further across the fabric. In between scrubbing submerge the fabric into the hot water and repeat the process until the color comes out.

–> Squeeze out the excess water and as long as you’re SURE you got ALL the crayon stains out (so you don’t stain your dryer again), you can dry them and they should be good as new.

What I learned in this process is that while you will be able to fix most of the stained items, you might still lose a few and it’s ok. Some items might not be worth the hassle of fixing so decide what is worth the work first.

For example, Julia had a sweater that had a white hood that was stained with yellow and orange. Technically I could have gotten it out, but the sweater barely fits her anymore. Was it worth it to spend the time scrubbing it out to get only a few more uses out of it? Probably not. Making those kinds of decisions earlier on would’ve saved me more time.

Thank you for reading! I hope that you never face this situation. But if you do, know that there is hope! And you’re not the only one. In the comments below let me know if this has ever happened to you and what ended up working!