The Bottom half of Tanion's tail SHOULD be white/grey. BUt It's all stained yellow at the moment. I've washed it three times with Whitening Shampoo But it only took a little of the stain out. What do you guys use to whiten you horse's tails?? Any tricks that won't hurt the hair would be GREATLY appreciated! :) Thanks all!

Anyone???

Hi, Heather.  Funny you should ask!  That's the very question that got me started on online forums (this one, in fact, if memory serves) some 11 years ago!  I needed to know how to get my mostly-white Paint mare's tail white for a show.  Lots of suggestions followed, and I tried them all.  The closest I got to white was kind of a pale yellow-y beige.  LOL

I think the biggest problem is that it's just hard to scrub enough to really get ALL the hair clean if you've let it go (like I did) for too long.  To that end, I just bought a cool new toy.  It's a tail bag for washing!  The tail goes in, the plastic bag velcros on around the tail head, and there's a place to squirt in some shampoo.  Then you squish and squeeze the bag with the tail in it until you're happy with how clean it is.  You can leave it on to soak (which is my full intention) and rinse when you're ready.  The hose goes in the same slot where you added the shampoo.  You snip the bottom off the bag for rinsing (it comes with replacement bags).  I found it at Horsespa.com. 

I've had moderately good luck with shampoos made for white coats--the pretty blue ones--and very poor luck with all the additives like bluing, bleach, peroxide and so on.  Orvis does a very good job, but it's not much on whitening a tail that's pretty far along the "dingy" scale. 

 I wish you luck!  Somewhere i've got a great pic of that mare after she was totally prepped and show-ready . . . and covered head-to-toe to keep her that way till we got to the show!  LOL  White horses are god's little joke on horse people. 

I've had the best luck with Exhibitor's Quick Silver, even though it doesn't get a really filthy tail snow white. The best bet is a tail bag to keep it clean. As it grows out, the new white hair will stay white. This is what I did with an Arab I used to own. Now with Scout, I just get it as clean as I can and enjoy it while it lasts, which is usually about a week - I'm convinced Scout was a pig in a former life! LOL

  There is a shampoo out there called BioGroom (good luck finding it, I haven't seen it in at least 2 years), they ahve a website (http://www.biogroom.com/), but I can't find anyone around that actually sells it.  Anyway, if you can get this stuff, scrub it in the tail and let sit for about 20 minutes.  Come back and rinse out, repeat cycle about 2 times and you will have a clean tail.

  To get the tail to STAY clean after you have already shampood, try 4 lemons juiced (toss some of the peel into a spray bottle) with water and just a tad bit showsheen.  Spray this on twice a day (don't drench the tail, just a light does like you would the day of the horse show with show sheen), come through and toss the horse in the pasture.  DO NOT WRAP THE TAIL, it will defeat the purpose of the lemon juice.  By a week you should notice that the tail is almost translucient (sp) due to the acid in the lemon breaking down the dirt.  This is the ONLY thing I have found that works 100% of the time.  No matter what I do, I wash the tail weekly and apply this spray, it really works.

  For other shampoos, Jeffer's makes a whitening shampoo that works pretty darn well, you just really have to scrub a few times for everything to come out.  Cowboy magic has a decent shampoo again, if you don't mind scrubbin a heck of a lot.  Quick silver dried out my guys tail and caused some really nasty broken ends, so I haven't used it since.  Years ago, I remember someone who was in (still maybe in, haven't seen her in a while) the TN walker show circuit, once the season was over she bagged her horses tail (white horse) and sprayed with showsheen, coated the whole tail in Mane and Tail Conditioner and left it wrapped for over a month.  When she took it out, WOW gorgeous long, full and softest tail!  I wouldn't do it, simply b/c of the fly problem here, but her horse was stalled with a fly system.

When I worked at the zoo we used lemon juice on both our flea-bitten grey and our Dutch Belted cow.  That seemed to work really well, and that cow was always lying in her poop, no matter how often we cleaned...lol

Sidesaddle1026:

  To get the tail to STAY clean after you have already shampood, try 4 lemons juiced (toss some of the peel into a spray bottle) with water and just a tad bit showsheen.  Spray this on twice a day (don't drench the tail, just a light does like you would the day of the horse show with show sheen), come through and toss the horse in the pasture.  DO NOT WRAP THE TAIL, it will defeat the purpose of the lemon juice.  By a week you should notice that the tail is almost translucient (sp) due to the acid in the lemon breaking down the dirt.  This is the ONLY thing I have found that works 100% of the time.  No matter what I do, I wash the tail weekly and apply this spray, it really works.

  I haven't used it on the body per say, but I have used the mix on the horses' legs.  I just sprayed the lemon/water mix straight to the legs then rinsed off about 10 mins later.  Soap up, rinse and spray the legs with showsheen.  Not sure how the mix would work on the body, maybe someone else will know.

ok. Thanks!

Thanks all! I REALLY like that Lemon juice idea! I wonder if just getting the bottle of juice would work?? I'll give that a try... I try to keep his tail braided... (I put it in about 6-8 small braids so he still has a fly swater). Would the lemon juice mix work with it braided? Thanks again for the replies!

That's what we used...the lemon juice that comes in a bottle.  Never tried it freshly squeezed, so I'm not sure of the difference.

I'm not sure how it would work with it braided.  I would be worried that it would get to some parts better than others, ending up with a funky pattern in the tail.  We never braided ours so, once again, not sure about that.

Kristin

Hmmmm.... Didn't think about the pattern problem.... Good point. I really appreciate the idea! Thanks!

  I agree about the funky pattern, unless you dunk the entire tail in the bucket, but then again by braiding it you defeat the purpose of the lemon to begin with.  You want the tail to be out in the sunlight so when the sun hits it, it warms the lemon juice (i.e. the acid) and starts breaking down the dirt.  I had a vet explain to me why this worked, but I lost him after "Then the citric acid...." yeah, so not a science person!

I'm showing a black and white paint with a tail that's a combo of the two colors! Normally I pick out all of the white chunks and give them a good scrub (yes, it is tedius work!). If I spray the white with lemon juice, do you think it would also bleach out the black parts?

Hi,

  I bought this shampoo for my paint who has a tenancy towards dry skin from the winter months and found out by accident that it gets white WHITE and the coat really shines - the white in his mane always had a faint yellow tinge after shampooing but no more! I was amazed & little goes a long way - I now use it on all of my horses.Shiny, shiny boys =;-> 

http://www.kvvet.com/KVVet/productr.asp?pf%5Fid=79001&gift=False&HSLB=False&mscssid=0DB781021815440F09C12B69844A4E1F