Whiten Your Yellow Pillows (Step-by-Step)

Step 1

Start by bringing a large pot of water to a boil on your stovetop. Stir the laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, and borax into the boiling water, and stir until the powdered ingredients dissolve. (You could also pour the water into a bucket and then add the dry ingredients, if you don’t want to mix cleaning ingredients inside a cooking pot.)

Step 2

When the dry ingredients have dissolved into the water, pour the water into the washer (or wherever you’re soaking your pillows) along with the bleach. Then let the pillows soak in the water for about 30 minutes. You should also flip the pillows over about half-way through the soak, to make sure that they’re getting fully saturated.

Step 3

Following the soak, run the pillows through a full wash cycle in your washing machine. Select the 2nd rinse option, if possible.

Step 4

If you have down pillows, put them into your dryer on the “fluff” or “air” setting. Synthetic pillows can be dried on low heat. Add a couple of tennis balls or homemade dryer balls to the dryer to help fluff the pillows as they dry.