"Oily" spots on freshly cleaned laundry????

Question

What causes these "oily" looking spots on my freshly cleaned laundry? and more importantly, is there any way to get them out? I do use a liquid fabric softner (Downy April Fresh) and a dryer sheet (Bounce regular) and I use Tide with color safe bleach as the detergent. I've heard just today that it could be the fab. softner, but that person wasn't sure if it would be the liquid or the dryer sheet...and why would those cause the oily spots? Is there any products to get them out??? I'm ruining a lot of clothes here. Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

process of elimination, wash the clothes using detergent only and when they finish, see if there are any spots. If no spots then try adding the fabric softner in the correct cycle, during the rinse, etc.

Answer 2

This happened to me and I got a brand new washer, because I thought it was my washer doing it. It wasn't! It was the fabric softener. I put it in the cup where it goes and I was also putting a little down into the laundry to make it smell good. It was making gray oily looking spots on my cloths. I don't do that anymore and the spots stopped.

Answer 3

It very well could be the fabric softener because of the chemical binders they use to formulate it.  Certain fabrics are more affected by the oils in the sheets (i.e. silks, polyester crepe) while others by the liquid (rayons).  You treat them like grease stains caused by food.  You can use Zout, Shout, Resolve, Dawn liquid dish soap or even automotive hand cleaner like GOOP to get them out.