The most important thing about removing stains is to treat them as soon as possible. Again, teach your children at a young age to pre-treat their own stains with Dawn.
The second most important thing is to not put an item through the dryer until you know the stain is out. The heat of the dryer will set it in, making it next to impossible to get it out.
Getting Ink Out
Removing Gum
How to Remove Grass Stains
OK, this lady is pretty ‘entertaining’, but she covers the basics! :o)
More Stain Fighting Ideas
Test your treatment on a part of the fabric that cannot be seen easily to make sure the garment can withstand the treatment.
Use the most gentle treatment first.
Never mix chemicals, especially bleach and ammonia, this causes dangerous fumes.
Soaking clothes in the washer with vinegar several hours will help with strong odors.
Making baking soda and water into a paste is good on stains.
Dawn dish liquid is excellent on grease stains.
Lemon juice on a stain and hung out in the sun for a day helps to bleach stains out.
You may need to treat stains 2-3 times before they come out.
How to Do Laundry Video Series
Shirley says:
Hi, here are a couple more stain tidbits I found:
- for ink/marker - the hairspray mentioned is right, but I believe it needs to have ‘lacquer’ in it - i.e., the cheap stuff! It does work great - even on sidewalks and walls (unfortunately, we discovered that one when we had nasty graffitti on our church recently!)
- for blood and chocolate, try regular hydrogen peroxide - got that tip from a paramedic a long time ago - it works! But be sure to test on a hidden place first… sometimes prints on fabrics can come off (again, found that out the hard way~)
Shirley
Kathy says:
Thank you for adding these tips!