Any hope for these clothes?

In short: It worked; the clothes are saved! Thank you!

I have six tops that needed treating; two are cotton and the others are
rayon with saturated dark color backgrounds to lighter prints. The
colors did indeed run, especially on the darker tops, but in the end
they look fine. I suspect the reason these tops had deodorant residue
while others didn't is because they're normally washed in cold water.
Now, you can't even discern any fading; I only know the colors ran
because the water didn't run clear.

I didn't use my washing machine; I used a plastic tub that holds about
two gallons when completely full, put in two scoops of Oxi Clean, and
filled it halfway with the hottest tap water. I then put in one top and
used a stirring stick to saturate the top, and left it to sit for at
least an hour. After that, I put in a very small amount of laundry
detergent and used my hands to agitate, then rinsed repeatedly until the
water ran clear, and hung to try. I did that for each top so the colors
from one wouldn't get onto another. I guess after the original water
had cooled, I could have thrown them all into my washer for a rinse
cycle, but I wanted to have more control and make sure the colors didn't
mingle. I'm glad it worked; these were my favorites.

The CAT...

Excellent! I plan to try this myself on some winter clothing that came
out of storage with the same issue (and I know it was all clean when it
went in!) that I really hated to give up on. My winter work clothes
only see about three months' wear in this climate so I don't really want
to go buy more every year if not needed.

The bizarre thing I don't understand is why the armpits looked fine when
the clothes went into storage, and only showed up looking faded and
sparkly after a few years. That's why I assumed it was bleaching and
damage instead of just residue, but it does appear to be just residue.

The CAT...

I don't have an answer for this either but am looking forward to
successfully treating some flannel shirts this week - thanks for the
update!

The CAT

Jamie...

I am too! DH calls me the laundry queen! I know how it is too to have
maternity clothes that you really like. Plus, when you only wear them for
such a limited time, it's nice if you can re-use them.

The fading and sparkling I'm sure is due to chemical/bacterial reaction.
And you're probably right about the items only being washed in cooler water
contributing to the 'staining'. There was more residue left on the items in
the first place and that is why they looked faded.

Deodorant residue is difficult to break down (it repels water in the first
place!) and builds up even though we can't always see it.

I'm glad this worked for you!

I want to shed my old maternity clothing, but when I got everything out
of storage, I found the armpits appear somewhat bleached, and sometimes
even sparkly. I assume this is the result of deodorant left on the
clothes before washing. Is this permanent damage, or is this something
that can be removed? Has anyone here successfully reversed such damage?
I web-search the web for "deodorant stain" and find things about yellow
waxy buildup, which this does not appear to be.

ahmward...

I've tried and tried everything to get deodorant stains out of a few of
my son's shirts and have been unsuccessful. If they are white, you can
soak them in Oxi Clean.