http://www.care2.com/greenliving/remove-laundry-stains-12-tips.html
Effective Ways to Remove Laundry Stains
Adapted from Betty's Book of Laundry Secrets, by Betty Faust and Maria Rodale.
Some people are able to gracefully avoid stains. Others are magnets for stains and can’t eat a simple snack without dripping spicy salsa or globs of chocolate ice cream down their shirtfronts.
If you are a stain magnet, or live with one, you need stain-removing help!
Betty is a genius at removing spots, from chocolate and grass to mildew and ink. But she doesn’t put much faith in all those miracle (and often toxic) potions you can buy at the supermarket.
“A lot of those stain-removing products you can buy at the supermarket leave spots on clothes,” she says. Some stain removers contain highly toxic solvents, or chorine bleach, both unfriendly to the environment.
Betty believes in two things: A bar of Ivory soap and a scrub brush. The key to preventing a spot from becoming a permanent stain is treating it before it bakes in the dryer. Also, remember:
- Check your clothes for stains before washing them.
- Double-check before drying.
- When in doubt, soak spots in cold water.
THE IVORY SOAP METHOD
Ivory soap works well for stains because it’s mild (with an almost-neutral pH) and it doesn’t contain moisturizers, deodorants, and other unnecessary additives. Other mild white bar soaps will work, too, but save those colorful, moisture-laden or highly perfumed soaps for unwinding in the bathtub. For stain removal, plain old soap works wonders.
1. Wet the stained garment with cold water.
2. Rub a bar of Ivory soap directly into the stain, then rinse.
3. If that doesn’t remove the stain, rub Ivory soap on the stain again, and then soak the fabric for 30 minutes or so in cold water with a bit of powdered detergent dissolved in it. (If you forget and leave stuff soaking longer, it doesn’t really matter; you won’t hurt the fabric.) Rinse.
4. If that still doesn’t work, rub more bar soap into the stain, scrub it with a scrub brush (taking care not to damage the fabric), and rinse.
5. If a second scrubbing attempt doesn’t remove the stain, blot it gently with some color-safe bleach (oxygen-bleach, not chlorine bleach) diluted with water, then rinse with clean water to remove all of the bleach.
6. If all else fails, be prepared to live with the stain.
EXCEPTIONS TO THE IVORY SOAP RULE
Like most rules, there are exceptions. Certain stains require different methods of attack.
Coffee: Betty says that coffee isn’t hard to get out if you get to it with soap and water right away.
Fruit: Betty always puts lemon on the stain first. If that doesn’t work, then she uses bar soap.
Mildew: Wash the garment in warm or hot water with oxygen bleach, depending on the fabric, and line dry or dry flat in direct sunlight.
Oil and grease: Sprinkle some cornstarch or baking soda on the stain, then place the garment, stain side down, on a large rag on top of an ironing board. Iron with a hot iron on the wrong side of the stain. Most oil and grease stains will come right out. (This trick works only for oil and grease, which need heat to dissolve.)
Rust: Soak fabric spotted with brown rust stains (which sometimes come from hard water) in a solution of 1 part lemon juice and 1 part water for at least 30 minutes. Do not use chlorine bleach on rust stains.
Tea stains: These are hard to get out, but Betty soaks tea stains in cool water and applies bar soap anyway.
Sweat stains: Line-dry the shirts outside. The combination of sunlight’s natural bleaching properties and drying at lower temperatures than in a dryer keeps sweat stains from turning yellow. It’s the heat of the dryer that sets the stains and makes them difficult to get out.
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36 comments
add your comment »how do you get permanet ink marker out of a apron aprons (lunch ladies) i tried everything anything out in the stores? jenny rzjjt5@sbcglobal.net
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I have a baseball player - white pants - red field dirt - it doesn't mix. I'm having issues with getting this dirt out - his pants are orange now and I have treated several times. Any suggestions? Tired of purchasing new pants! Thanks....
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I cannot use ivory soap I am highly allergic to it it makes me swell and break out into feaver. so this does not help someone who is allergic to that. any other suggestions?
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Just tried the trick with the baking soda for a grease stain! I gotta tell ya, it worked great. At first I had the steam on the iron which didn't do the trick. Once I turned that off, the stain vanished! THANK YOU! I just bought these pants and they have already had to endure pen ink treatment (which is using rubbing alcohol straight on it and just squeezing it out, which works like magic)
Thank you again for sharing with everyone who isn't very good at laundering like me!
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OxyClean is amazing! It gets out pretty much any stain... grease, cranberry, wine, etc. I had a jacket that had a year-old cranberry stain and year-old grease stains. Washed it with OxyClean: completely gone! (I let it soak for about 2-3 days in Vinegar and laundry detergent first, the use of Vinegar got most of the stain out.) Then, I wore the jacket that night and managed to get a WINE stain on it! For the love...!!! Couldn't get to it for 20 hours. I soaked it in OxyClean... completely gone. I've OxyCleaned our whole house within the last month... no discoloration of fabrics at all--I wash colored fabrics and my whites in it!... everything's brighter... things that have been stained for years are completely clean now! Yay! (I soak the stains in OxyClean and detergent for a few hours b/4 washing.) I have noticed that it's not as good at taking out makeup stains... : (
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Need help! melted lipstick in dryer - any suggestions????
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First of all, I do formulary. I would like to correct some of the above statements. Soap has a ph of about 10 or 11. Any lower than that and it will not suds. If it has a "neutral" ph it is not soap but a surfactant . Beauty bars are a surfactant based product (i.e. Dove). To remove stains you want a higher ph. Most washing sodas (i.e. sodium carbonate) is in laundry detergent to raise the ph of the water to help the soap or sufactants clean better. Washing soda is the same thing as non chlorine bleach, but cheaper to purchase. Any soap will work rubbed on a stain. Rubbing soap on oil stains also helps to remove them. Just rub in and let dry then launder.
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My 8 year old daughter left lipstick in her pocket and I washed and dryed it. Now it is all over her other clothes how can I get it out.
Any Suggestions?
Sue R
Kylee1228@yahoo.com
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I have a problem with my solid light blue police volunteer short sleeve shirts. The collars have deep "ring around." I have put bleach on the collars and also had the shirts cleaned at the dry cleaners. No luck.
Any suggestions?
Dr. K.
mgmtdrak@yahoo.com
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HI There, this is Annie. I didn't write this article, but yes, I allowed it to get on the site. Regarding companies, I tend to look at the actual product, not the company as a whole because I like to advocate the least toxic products and support a company when they provide those. Because I allowed Ivory soap in this article doesn't mean I would have allowed us to publish recommendations about other products by P & G.
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