I wear men's dress shirts 5 days a week for my job.  Some are white,
tan, blue or dark brown.  The oil from my face gets on the inside top
area of the shirt collar and leaves a stain which only shows on non
white shirts.  When I take my shirts to be laundered professionally,
several different cleaners cannot remove thge oil stain unless they
dry clean the shirts which is incredibly expensive and not an option.

How can I clean the oil stain myself at home?  What can I use to
easily and effectively remove the oil from around the collar?

Hi gordonc,

Thank you for your question.  

Shampoo lightly scrubbed into the stain with a tooth brush works very
well!  Shampoo is made to remove body oils.  Apply your regular
shampoo to the neck area of the garment, gently scrub, then launder as
usual.
 

Household Hints by Myra L. Fitch
http://lonestar.texas.net/~fitch/hints/hints.html

Ring Around the Collar

"Dirty neck rings around shirt or blouse collars can be removed by
putting shampoo on them. Rub the shampoo in like you were washing your
hair. Shampoo is specifically made to remove body oils. A cheap bottle
of shampoo kept by the washing machine is handy for all kinds of
stains in clothing. Don't forget this trick when you are traveling.

Here is a suggestion for from a reader about cleaning collars.

"I had a couple of dress shirts that had ring around the collar pretty
bad. I found your shampoo suggestion and it helped some, but the ring
was still pretty pronounced. It occurred to me that I had some
mechanics hand cleaner (Fast Orange with pumice, natural citrus
formula with no petroleum solvents was the brand I had) that is
designed to remove grease from your hands. Since I had nothing to lose
on the shirts (ruined one way or the other), I tried the hand cleaner.
I applied and used a small hand brush to work it in some. Washed the
shirts and the ring around the collar is 95% gone. It also cleaned the
dirty cuffs that I applied some cleaner to also."

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Lifestyle -Tips Leave no stains behind?.
http://www.thedailystar.net/lifestyle/2004/07/02/page02.htm

Soiled Shirt Collars: 

"Take a small paintbrush and brush hair shampoo into soiled shirt
collars before laundering. Shampoo is made to dissolve body oils."

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Thriftyfun.com
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf309962.tip.html

Cleaning Ring-Around-The-Collar

"try using a baking soda paste leave on for 15 minutes and then wash
in your laundry."
 
"My husband also recently had problems with ring-around-the-collar, he
got fed up with the stains not coming out when we cleaned them so he
took the shirts to a dry cleaners. When I picked up the shirts and
asked them how they treated the collars they actually told me they use
Shout. They just spray it on the collars and launder as usual.
According to them other products can set the stain in deeper and using
bleach can make the collars turn a yellowish color. I am not sure what
a homemade substitute for Shout would be but the name brand stuff has
been working great on my husbands work shirts."

"For ring around collar use shampoo straight from bottle on collar.
Rub gently before washing."

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keyword search:

dress shirt collar oil face neck stain
ring around the collar

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Best regards,
tlspiegel