Tips for Dealing with Tough Laundry Stains

I don’t know about anyone else, but laundry is one of my least favourite chores. Maybe if I had a beautiful laundry room, it might be a different story. But I have a laundry area in our unfinished basement and I like to spend as little time as possible there. You may recall that I shared my laundry routine a few years ago in this very popular post. In it, I shared how I cut the time spent doing laundry routine in half by not doing laundry in the traditional sort-the-colours manner. I am totally a rule-breaker when it comes to doing laundry!

When it comes to treating my family’s laundry stains, I want to use something that is tough and gets stains out the first time! Like most families, our family has our fair share of stains on clothing…most often food stains. We are a very dribble-prone, slopping-prone, miss-the-mouth-target kind of family! All 4 of us have food stains on the front of our shirts at least a few times a week. It can be anything from coffee, mustard, ketchup or tomato sauce…in fact I think you can see what the week’s menu was at our house from examining the front of our shirts. Can you relate? One of the yuckiest stains that I have had to deal with is dog poop in my son’s jeans pocket. True story. Don’t ask.

Over the years, I have learned a few tips for fighting stains on our clothing. Here are my tips:

2. Use Cold Water.
I learned this trick when I was taking Home Economics in junior high. Cold water  works on most food stains. Put cold water on a stain immediately if you can. It stops the stain from ‘setting’ into the fabric. Hot water makes clothing fibers swell so that the stain can set deeper into the fabric. A cold water pre-soak is also great for blood, ketchup and tomato sauce stains. Recently my daughter was wearing new white jeans while eating chocolate ice cream that was dripping because of the hot weather. You can guess what happened. I told her to put cold water from her water bottle right on it and rub the water in. The cold water did a great job of removing the stain to only a very faint colour right then and there.Yay!

3. Use A Stain Treatment.
Usually tough stains like grass, oil or grease need a stain fighting treatment before going into the washer. I have used a spray product for years…sometimes without much success. Enter Resolve®. This product is new to me and I wanted to try it to see how it works. I have to say that I am impressed so far. Here is a white shirt that I ‘christened’ with some salsa.  I didn’t get a chance to put cold water on it as I was out with friends when it happened.  When I arrived home,  it was late and I was too tired to do anything with the shirt. I just threw it on the floor. Here it is the next morning with the stain.

I threw it in the wash with a scoop of Resolve®. Here is the shirt after it washing and drying….with no trace of the salsa stain whatsoever. I had to say that I was shocked! It worked the first time! Yay! No second treatment or second time in the washer.

My teen daughter recently had her wisdom teeth out. After the procedure was over, I took her home and put her to bed to sleep for the rest of the day. When she woke up later in the day, there was a blood stain on her pillow. Since it was a fairly new pillow, I wanted to try to treat the stain first before throwing it away. Here is the pillow before Resolve® treatment. {Please remember that this stain is over a month old now.I had tried another stain treatment product and without success.}

4. Don’t Dry Or Heat The Stain.
Make sure the stain is checked as soon as it comes out of the washer. If the stain is still visible, try a second stain treatment and wash before drying or ironing the garment.  If heat is used, the stain will ‘set’ and be even more difficult to remove.

Disclosure: I am part of the Resolve® Tip Exchange Blogger Exchange with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on my blog are my own.