If someone is a smoker, their sweat will stain sheets and the stain will be difficult to remove.

This is the same as underarm stains. Tough problem. I use Clorox for colors - non bleach and won't destroy fabrics. Helps with white too.

I happen to use Kirkland free and clear, but you may not have access to Costco. In my experience, you need to wash the sheets daily if perspiration is a big problem. If it sits and dries nothing will help. Use lighter weight and more breathable fabrics so less sweating at night.

Oddly, I've found a slightly lower water temp works better than hot. Borax will help soften the water and it can be useful, but too many additives of all kinds into the wash are problematic.

Use presoak if your machine has that option. And extra rinse to get all the soap out. Good luck.

No smoking, just sweaty sleepers.

Agreed, do not use chlorine bleach. It can react with the sweat.

I looked on line (I don't have issues with sweat in fabrics) and they recommend a lot of soaking.

Here's the link Remove Sweat Stains from Sheets

Good luck.

My husband is bald and his pillow case get sweat stains. I soak them for a few hours in the stationary tub with oxy and dawn then wash them. They come out clean.

MaMaPinky use to say Tide w/bleach and the hottest water possible and let them soak for a while. That’s powdered Tide that comes with bleach in it, not 2 products.

The oxy clean for whites works to help get rid of the yellowing a lot of white sheets tend to get over time, bleach will make it worse. For the oxy clean I soak it in the tub for a couple hours. I've also heard to use blue dye to counter act the yellow but I havent tried it.

Biz is not available in Canada. Never seen Tide with bleach, ours says bleach alternative?

I've tried soaking, maybe not long enough because I usually take sheets off, wash and they go right back on. No linen closet in my home:(

MamaPinkys advice I’m sure is best. I do know that water conditions affect a lot of fabrics and detergents etc differently. I keep a bucket in the laundry sink, and dissolve plenty of oxyclean in it, maybe 1/2 c or more, then put just enough cool water to soak the sheet for 24 hrs. Then wash. It works great for me.

The Tide with Bleach recommended by Mimi is a powder. The "bleach" is oxygen bleach, not chlorine bleach. That gets confusing. It does work amazingly well for issues like yours. I use a pre-wash in warm and this detergent or regular detergent and an oxy-clean type of additive. Let that soak for a couple hours if you can. Drain and spin that wash water out and THEN do a hot wash with the detergent. Some washers will do this automatically if you have a pre-wash function that leads to a main wash afterwards. You just load up your detergent dispenser for pre-wash and main wash and the machine does the process for you after you select that type of cycle--if you have it. Hot first and only sometimes can set the stains and odors. It's an extra step and more time, but it's a good process for stubborn laundry issues. My daughter used to have access to a poor quality front load washer in college. She used to run two quick or normal cycles to achieve somewhat close to the above process.

Powder Biz is great. Too bad you can't get it in Canada :-(

Couple of things here. I worked in a testing lab for a major washing machine maker at one time testing laundry products as well as machines.
There is nothing in chlorine that "reacts with sweat" but to remove the stain.
Sheets that are not all cotton are more subject to staining and to retaining odors. An Oxygen bleach in every wash is the best to remove odors and sweat stains. Hot water breaks up oils, and a product with a "whitener" like Tide will essentially "re dye" your sheets that are a poly blend, making them white again.
Oh and one more thing....don't over load your washer. 2 king sized sheets and 4 pillow cases is too much. Vary your loads, wash one king with a twin or a couple of towels, and the other king sheet in another load.

For sweat and oily stains Ammonia and a hot wash is my to go to. Tide Powder will be great for keeping the sheets white, but probably not as good as something like Tide Ultra Stain Release in removing sweat.

I had a set of white Nautica cotton percale sheets on my bed for about 5 years. They were washed weekly in hot water with Tide Powder and I never had an issue with stains or dinginess. Granted, our Duet is right next to our hot water heater, and has a tap hot wash of at least 130ºF. 1 cup of ammonia was added to each wash, except when I was sick, and then 1/8 cup of bleach was put in the dispenser (maybe once a year). During this time, I had a dog that was near death for quite an extended period of time. He slept in bed with me a majority of nights, and was certainly a big contributor to soils on my bed. Lol. Despite this, I never had an issue.

With that being said, I have boiled my old pillowcases maybe 3 or 4 times and never noticed a big difference. However, people that are very heavy sweaters at night (I couldn't imagine being worse than I am) will likely see a very yellow and dirty pot of water afterward. This might be worth a try if they are visibly soiled or still smelly after a wash.

As SEA SEA said, you can always try a warm soak before washing. This will allow enzymes to work a little on the soils before the hot wash.

What kind of washer do you have? If the water temperature is limited by the machine itself, you might want to use a Sanitize or Allergen cycle. However, you can always bump up your hot water heater temperature and see if that helps. Keep us posted!

The washer cycle I use for sheets/bedding fills with 122°F water and has a 30-min soak period during the wash period.

I bought a set of 100% cotton percale sheets from Bed Bath & Beyond and they were the hottest sheets to sleep on. When I washed them, they had air pockets in the water because they were so dense like sleeping in a plastic bag. Definitely not user friendly. Sweat city.

Same happened with dd with percale sheets she bought at Target, I think it was. She loves them. I love them; I got to sleep on them for a few nights when I visited her. But oh boy, are they HOT sheets to sleep on! When she brings them home to get a good home washing, when I take them out of the washer, they feel like a plastic shower curtain. Certainly not a sheet. It's strange. Almost as if they are made of plastic fabric.

I felt embarrassed because she bought those sheets on my recommendation. :-(

SEA SEA - are y'all sure those sheets are 100% cotton and not microfiber or "modal"?

Reading this thread I am curious-are these all white sheets you each are discussing or sheets that have color and/or prints?

Hi Cavium. I wondered the same thing. The label says 100% cotton percale. I do remember a few years back, was it MamaP?, who said that they can include a certain percentage of "other" in that 100% cotton label. I wonder if this "other" is plastic.

Hi armjim,

I'm washing white and prints. My older circa 1992 100% cotton sheets are holding up well. The print color is just now starting to fade a little bit.. My other cotton print sheets, light grey, bought about 10 years ago at Costco and claim to be percale are also holding up surprisingly well. I have another set of Calvin Klein white cotton sheets about 20 years old that are just now starting to fray at the top sheet upper portion seam. I think we got our money's worth out of those. Dd has (not the dd mentioned above) Target cotton sheets in white that are holding up well but since they are about two years old, the textile quality is not there, the smoothness is gone, unlike the old sheets. My warm temp is 120F and hot temp is 140F. I could get hotter if I wanted to, but it's not safe for hands any hotter and I don't want to fiddle around with the hot water heater to turn it up, then back down.

SEA SEA, I have sheets that I bought from JC Penney in 1996 that I still use regularly, along with another set that are at least that old if not older. Both sets have prints and colors, and still look good. (I dare not tell someone just how old those two sets are or he would flip!) I also have about 3 sets of white and ivory and a a couple of other colors that are newer, so that means each set is used about once every 6 weeks or so. I routinely wash these in warm; I would say our W/H is set at about 140F as well. I just never see stains that are not being washed out, and I never use bleach on them, even the white ones. The only thing I have ever experienced is one set have the orange discoloration spots that I have never been able to figure out why (happened in VA before we moved to TX).

I hope those now vintage sheets of yours armjim keep on being great! We can't get equal replacements anymore. Certain someone need not know the sheet's ages ;-) I think a 6 week rotation is good for extending their lifespan. You have a nice amount of sheet sets.

I've not used chlorine bleach on our sheets either.

I wonder if the orange spots are rust. Both of our former front loaders left rust spots on white fabric. The wash drum didn't have visible rust, but it was there somewhere. I still have orange spots on some towels and such. Nothing has removed those spots.

SEA SEA, exactly. A number of our towels too have the spots. I remember while still in the previous house and had a FL I had asked about it, and there just wasn't an answer that jibed with our habits. It was not the toothpaste or acne products.