Can Some Lemon Juice Make Our Whites Brighter Or Does This Hack Only Smell Good?

The reality of what hard water does to laundry is kind of gross. Inarguably grosser is what the combo of sweat, oils, and other realities of the human body do to it. When my household buys new white bed sheets, they stay white for a remarkably short amount of time thanks to both hard water and, yes, bodies. It doesn't help our bedding that we share it with two dogs, but that's not going to change.

As a committed tree-hugger, I welcome nontoxic cleaning solutions whenever possible. I'm always looking for ways to keep the bed linens bright — or relatively bright — without using bleach. However, I've even resorted to this harsh substance after oxygen cleaners didn't whiten our sheets; and bleach wasn't the key, either. Lemon juice was a sheet-whitening hack I hadn't tried. I was skeptical but had little to lose. We always have lemon juice on hand as well as sheets needing a wash. I had my doubts that lemon juice would do what neither an oxygen booster nor bleach could do, especially with our hard water, but it was worth a try.

I gathered up an armload of dingy sheets, a bottle of Safeway Select 100% lemon juice from concentrate, and a measuring cup, and down to the laundry room I went. According to a few sources, anywhere from one lemon's worth of juice up to a ½ cup per gallon of hot water, paired with regular detergent, tackles yellow sheet stains. Given the extreme stains on our sheets, I opted for the larger amount of juice. A "before" photo was certainly in order, so I located a fresh sheet of white paper to set next to the pile for comparison. And wow, those sheets were so far from white.

Into the front-loading machine went ½ cup of lemon juice, a set of California king white sheets, and a tablet of Blueland laundry detergent. Set to hot, I let the power team do its best to brighten the sheets.

Once the machine's chime went off, I inspected the results. At first glance, I didn't notice a difference in brightness. But since the sheets were wet, I opted to hang them to dry on our outdoor line and get a better idea of whether the lemon juice indeed took the yellowing out of the sheets. (We typically dry laundry without a machine, so the brightening contributions of the sun were not a new addition to the cleaning routine.)

In little time, the summer sun and breeze did their work, and the dried sheets' whiteness wasn't markedly improved. Had I done everything correctly? I could confirm that 2 or 3 tablespoons of juice (the equivalent of one squeezed lemon) wouldn't work against our super-soiled sheets. But did I need to add ½ cup of juice for every gallon of water the machine used, as suggested by one source? Since my LG washer adjusts the water amount by load sensing, I thought it'd be too hard to estimate how many gallons of water the cycle would use.

After a bit of searching, it looked like my model of washer uses about 13 gallons per load on average. At ½ cup per gallon, that added up to a pretty hefty pour of lemon juice. A small load of just one set of sheets would probably use less water. But to be safe, I assumed 13 gallons would be washing and rinsing this load. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. 

I measured out 7 ½ cups of juice, added another detergent tab and piping hot water, and went in for round two. The sheets came out of the washer accompanied by a delightful lemon scent, but their brightness level appeared to be the same as before. Once they were dry, their stain level was a bit better, but it wasn't an easily noticeable improvement.

Perhaps lemon juice is the magic ingredient to remove lightly or moderately yellowed sheets, but it did little to fix up our stained bedding. Maybe our hard water diminished the lemon juice's whitening ability, or maybe the hack just doesn't work. Both a moderate and a ridiculously large amount of lemon juice took their turns trying to fight the stains, and it gave me not much more than sweet-smelling-yet-still-stained sheets and a couple of bottles to recycle. Still, I don't know if it was worth using a bottle and a half of lemon juice to do it.

I wouldn't try this hack again since I'd rather save our lemon juice for delicious or confirmed cleaning applications. However, if your own sheets could use a bit of brightening and you've got a lemon or some juice without any future plans, it can't hurt to try this trick. At the very least, your sheets will be pleasantly scented for a bit. Otherwise, there are plenty of other easy lemon cleaning hacks to save your juice for.