Elf on the Shelf got a little D-I-R-T-Y

Hey y'all!  Today's post is a little, well a lot, off the normal topic of this blog. It's about how our Elf, Chewbacca, got into a mess & I saved him from having to be replaced.  We have the plush version and I couldn't really find anything to help, so maybe what worked for me can help you.

Meet Chewbacca.....

He likes to play on the Xbox, hang out in our Star Wars stockings, hide in the cookie jar, sleep on presents under the tree, and occasionally gets in trouble with the Lego figures.

Recently, he smelled glazed donuts & decided to go in head first.

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Little did he know the smell was coming from a candle....

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and he would end up looking like this....

Of course, as soon as I saw I freaked out.


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I didn't want to ruin it by trying to remove the soot & I REALLY didn't want to have to go buy a new one.

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So, I grabbed my Zote Soap & a mesh laundry bag. Because the main color of Chewbacca is red, he went in with a load of red clothes. I started up the cold water & stuck him under it a bit.  I took the soap and rubbed it all over where any of the black stuff was.

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 He was mostly clean before I even tossed him in the bag & into the washer, but I made sure to get him covered with the soap. 

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Once the load was done in the washer, I pulled him out & he was 100% clean! No stains & he even smelled great!

I kept him out of the dryer though because I didn't want to mess with the stuffing.

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So if your Elf on the Shelf happens to get into a huge mess, hopefully this will work for you.  

Also, this is how we explained Chewbacca being clean....the next day he was chilling out in my pedicure spa with a shower poofy & a bottle of shower gel. 

Oh, I totally forgot to mention...Zote Soap comes in a bar form or shavings in a box(I think). It's on the laundry aisle at Wal-Mart, or at least that's where I found it, on the top shelf along with the Hispanic laundry products.  The bar is under $1 and works for TONS of things.  I mostly use it to clean my make-up brushes, but it also kicks butt at removing stains out of laundry.