How to get blood & other stains out of clothes
April 30, 2005 | 12:00am
Dear Tanya,
I have three very active teenage boys who are into all kinds of sports. Often, they come home with a lot of scrapes, a bloody knee or elbow. Being boys, they simply wipe the dirt or blood off with their shirts and then don’t take them out of their bags so the stains set in. Their shirts and shorts are extra-dirty from sweat, soil and grass from their PE classes, and their white uniforms have dots of ink on them. How do you get rid of these stains? Nanette
Your question reminded me of an interview comedian Jerry Seinfeld did with Barbara Walters years ago. Walters was going to retire from one of her shows and she was asked about her most memorable interviews and she mentioned this bit about Seinfeld. He was making fun of a Tide commercial that claimed it could remove bloodstains in a wink. He said, "If you have a shirt with bloodstains all over it, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem right now."
Just be glad your boys are active and they don’t sit around the house playing computer games. But you’re right, stains are a bitch to remove, especially if you don’t know how they got there. I would sometimes look at my husband’s shirts and wonder if he doubles as a mechanic in his spare time. And when I ask him, he just shrugs his shoulders, forgetting that it was his favorite shirt or that I gave it to him. Men aren’t very sentimental about these things, are they? They will put their Boba Fetts in ziplock bags and hide them for years, and then spill ketchup all over the shirts you buy for them.
The book Simplify Your Household by Tara Aronson lists these common stains and how to remove them.
Blood: Rinse or presoak the garment in cold water and wash in cold water with laundry detergent. Do not use chlorine bleach, which can make the stain even worse. (The book All New Hints from Heloise recommends using unseasoned meat tenderizer as spot treatment on fresh stains before washing the fabric.)
Ink: We’ve covered ink stains several times. Here’s a new one from the book: Place the stain over the mouth of a jar or glass. Hold the fabric taught. Drip rubbing alcohol through the stain so the ink will drip into the container as the soil is removed. Rinse thoroughly and launder as usual.
Chocolate: Pretreat or prewash the garment in warm water with a cleaning product that contains enzymes. Launder as usual.
Coffee: Sponge with or soak in cold water. Apply pretreating product and launder.
Cosmetics: Pretreat with prewash stain remover or a liquid detergent before washing it.
Perspiration, deodorants: Use a prewash stain remover. If the stains are old, apply white vinegar on the spot. Rinse and launder using oxygen bleach in the hottest water that’s safe for the fabric.
Crayon: Scrape off surface with a dull knife. Soak the fabric in a product containing enzymes or oxygen bleach in the hottest water safe for the fabric. Launder using the hottest water it can withstand.
Grass: Presoak or prewash the garment in a bucket or washing machine with a detergent containing enzymes. Launder with chlorine bleach if it’s safe for the fabric. If the cleaning instruction warns against it, use oxygen bleach instead.
Urine: Cover with salt until all excess liquid is absorbed. Rinse in cold water. If a residual stain remains, apply white vinegar or hydrogen peroxide. Launder according to cleaning label.
Chewing gum: Rub ice on the stained part to harden it and scrape away with a dull knife, then launder as usual. The ice technique applies to chewing gum on shoes as well.
Wine: One of the first Home 911 questions was on wine stains. Ever heard that advice of pouring white wine over a red wine stain? Jury’s still out on that one. Some advice sites recommend it, others dismiss it as a myth. In any case, here’s another solution: Sprinkle salt on the spot to keep additional liquid from saturating the surface. Immerse in cold water or a solution of borax for 30 minutes and wash as label instructions recommend.
Washing the stained clothing immediately usually spares you a later headache. Most stains can be removed by simply laundering them right away. If it’s a liquid stain, blot out the excess liquid with a paper towel before treating it.
Party Pick-Me-Uppers |
I’m a sixth grader and I’m going to have a party next week. I don’t want my classmates to get bored. Do you have any ideas to make it fun? Witchie
Sorry, Witchie, this answer is obviously too late to be of any use for your birthday party this year. Keep it in mind, though, for your future parties. Being a sixth grader, you’re probably 11 or 12 years old – too old for Barbie and Little Mermaid themes, but not for balloons and games.
I can only suggest what my friends and I do at parties. After stuffing ourselves with good food, we play Pictionary, Taboo, or Win, Lose or Draw. Any game that involves shouting and pitting one team against another is a lot of fun. Sometimes, when nobody brings these games, one of us simply writes movie titles on slips of paper and we play charades. Check out Hobbes at Greenbelt 3, which has a lot of party and board games.
When adults play these games, there’s always taunting and fighting between couples that are split into different teams, which is very fun to watch. At one party our friends J. and I., because they were so antagonistic toward each other, prompted our host’s husband to ask if they were normally like this. Well, yes, this couple is an aberration. She once tied him to the floor, nearly naked, until he showed her the receipt he was hiding in his pocket. When another friend came over and found him in this position, she said she had only two choices: Either call the police or ignore him. So she stepped over him and proceeded to use his computer.
I guess that’s more information than you needed to know. I just wanted to tell that story.
Growing Paints |
I’m planning to repaint my room this summer. But I don’t know the right way to do it. What kind of paint would be safe and wouldn’t smell so bad?
Summer Girl
Don’t you just love how the color of a room changes its look entirely? Painting a room is one of the cheapest ways to give it a facelift!
Home 911 did a review of two paint brands in an earlier column and gave some painting basics. Here’s a summary: For paints that don’t smell, try Valspar available at Federal Hardware or Ace available at SM’s Ace Hardware. These are both water-based paints and can be used on cement and wood. With local paints, you have to get oil-based enamel for wood and acrylic for cement.
Valspar and Ace paints are mixed at the store and you can choose from over a hundred colors. In my experience, Valspar colors get lighter on application (compared with the swatches) and Ace gets darker and covers more surface per gallon of paint. I know this because we painted the same room using these two brands, two years apart, and we needed more paint with Valspar. Both brands have special ceiling paint that has a color upon application and then dries white – if I remember correctly Valspar is light blue and Ace is light pink.
Remember the rule of thumb: For a small room, use coordinating colors rather than contrasting to make it appear bigger; with a big room, you can paint it in just about any color you want.
Bright Idea |
The light bulb in our garage gets rusty, sticks to the socket and we change it more often than we do other lighting fixtures. Why does this happen and how do you prevent it?
Tony
Moisture is the culprit in this case. Outdoor lighting fixtures tend to rust worse than indoor. Rub a light coating of petroleum jelly on the light bulb’s threads before inserting it to prevent it from sticking to the socket.
Liquid Or Powder? |
What’s a better detergent, the liquid or powder variety? Having my clothes dry-cleaned is getting to be very expensive. Is there an alternative to this at home?
Melissa
For everyday washing, powder detergent is ideal because it is available everywhere. It is also effective for lifting out ground-in dirt. For food, greasy or oily soils, use a liquid detergent, which also acts as a spot cleaner and pretreater. Either way, remember not to overload your machine or the clothes won’t be cleaned thoroughly. As for dry-cleaning, a lot of people I know use Perwoll liquid detergent and either hand-wash their garments or wash them in the machine on gentle cycle. Some also use a laundry bag in the machine – a kind of mesh or cloth bag that prevents delicate clothes from ripping. Dry-cleaning liquids for home use are available at True Value.
Home 911 Has A New Text Number! |
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