How to remove stains from clothing is our topic for today’s blog post.
Hello, friends. Today’s post isn’t exciting, but it sure is helpful and practical. Thanks to my late mother-in-law who taught me everything she knew about doing laundry, I can get a stain out of almost anything. My mother-in-law lived on a farm and raised four active sons and a daughter. They didn’t have a lot of money so she had to make her children’s clothes last and last. Of course, they handed down their clothes, so that was another reason to get as much mileage out of each garment as possible. She always said that she knew her kids didn’t have the nicest clothes, but they had the cleanest clothes. Her method for getting out stains involved a lot of determination and soaking. I took her method and streamlined it using a two products that weren’t around when her kids were growing up.
I wrote about our almost organic approach to laundry in this post. However, when there’s a stain that I need to remove, I pull out the chemicals in the form of Pine Sol (or Lestoil) and Shout. This is not a sponsored post, by the way. Those products just seem to work the best for me. Now, I must admit here that when I said that I can get out almost any stain, the one that challenges me the most is chocolate. Sometimes I win, and sometimes chocolate wins. Mustard is also a real challenge, but if I get to it soon enough, I am the victor.
Here’s my easy approach to removing a stain, no matter what type of fabric I am dealing with.
How to Remove a Stain
I deal with the stain as soon as possible. If I drop something on a garment and it creates a stain, I will work on the stain as soon as I can – even before I go to bed. The longer a stain is on fabric, the longer it has to settle in and get comfortable.
First, I spray the garment with Shout. I know there are other stain removers out there, but Shout works best for me.
Then I immediately pour (or dab depending on the size of the stain) Pine Sol straight out of the bottle onto the stain.I rub the fabric and maybe even use a toothbrush, if necessary, to loosen the stain.Then I put it in the washing machine and run a full cycle.
That’s it.
When the wash cycle is over, I make sure that the stain is gone. If not, I then soak it overnight in a strong solution of Oxyclean. I never put a garment in the dryer until the stain is removed because the heat will set the stain, and then it will never come out.
If the garment is pure white, I will sometimes use a cotton swab and dab a little bleach right onto the stain. Then I will immediately wash it. I only do this with white fabric – never with colored fabric because it will bleach out the color.
My sweater came out of the process spot-free. Like I said, I can get out almost any stain, but if I realize that the stain won’t budge, there’s nothing wrong with admitting defeat. I know it’s hard when this happens to something that I really like to wear, but like Kenny Rogers said – “You’ve gotta know when to hold them and when to fold them, when to walk away, and when to run.”
I hope these tips for how I remove stains from clothing will help you.
Take care.
