Stain Removal Potion
One of the lessons that stands out from my decade-plus working in fashion design is less is more. The best editors make the best designers. You have to be able to look at your designs and intentionally strip it down to its simplest form. I have found the same idea applies to many aspects of life. Most important for me now is how to apply less is more to sustainable living.
Buy less.
Choose well.
Love what you have.
Practicing less has left me with more time for enjoying life. Spending time with friends and family, catching up on books or binge-worthy shows, and even writing articles about clothing care for a dope online magazine!
In 2019 I decided to stop buying clothes. Off-brand for a fashion designer, I know. I spent months researching sustainability in fashion to start a children’s clothing brand focused on reuse. It became clear that in order to call for change in others, I had to make changes in my own life first.
Having a closet full of clothes paired with that nagging feeling of “I have nothing to wear” made me want to start my journey with clothing. I took stock of what I had and it was quite clear that I did not need more, I needed to engage my editing superpowers and learn to care for what I had.
Part of caring for clothes is improving laundry habits. My habits have changed a lot in the last year. I try to launder only when needed which is usually after multiple wears…except gym clothes and panties for obvious reasons. The simplest tip I can offer is to pretreat always, spot clean often, and wash only when needed. This habit will go a long way in extending the life of your garments between washes and over a lifetime.
I recently conducted a poll to get an idea of laundry habits and the most common stains. I was happy to find that more than half of those surveyed pretreat stains before laundering. If you are in the other 40% who do not pretreat…you need to start. This simple task will reduce the number of times you need to wash your garments, which is the harshest thing we do to our clothes, as well as saving dollars spent on soaps, energy, and precious water.
A whopping majority of stains from those polled come from pizza. That may be a skewed statistic since I’m in NYC because we have really good pizza. Tied for second place are chocolate and wine, I’m guilty of these! Rounding out third place is coffee stains. All of which will stain permanently if not treated properly.
So you can give up pizza and wine…or keep reading.
photo credit via GIPHY
Rules to Live By
Extending the time between washings.
1. Don’t rub it in!
Every part of your being will want to grab a napkin and dab or rub the stain. What you are actually doing is pushing the stain deeper into the fibers and making it more difficult to get out. If you are out and cannot treat immediately, the best thing to do is to push the stain out.
- Scrape off any excess with a spoon.
- Grab one wet tissue and one dry.
- Place the dry tissue on the outside of the stain and the wet tissue on the inside and lightly press out.
The dry tissue will absorb the water from the wet one along with some of the stain. Then treat as soon as you can.
2. Always pre-treat stains. Always.
If you are in the habit of throwing stained items in the wash, stop it right now! Some stains need the solution to sit on them for a while to work effectively. Pretreating will help you save water, energy, and detergent since you will be sure the stain is gone before laundering…if you have to launder at all! If you skip this, you may end up getting stuck with the stains if you accidentally dry it too. This leads me to the next tip.
The coffee stain from above has already been sucked out, I barely let it sit for 10 minutes.
3. Always air-dry a stained item. Always always.
The heat from the dryer will set the stain, it will never come off. The heat from the sun will also set the stain, so air-dry the items inside to make sure the stain is gone.
To save $$
- Use the right amount of detergent.
Using more detergent than recommended will not get your clothes any cleaner, in fact, it has the opposite effect. Using more than the recommended amount will not rinse off properly and will remain on your clothes. This will act as a magnet for dirt. Do a little experiment, wash your hands but do not rinse the soap off. Let your hands dry and you’ll see they dry up very sticky!
To save energy…and more $$
- Wash in cold water.
To effectively wash in hot water, the water temperature needs to be between 140 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit (1). For safety, most home hot water heaters are set at about 120 degrees Fahrenheit, so your water is most likely not hot enough. If you need hot water for disinfecting, do it on the stovetop. You will heat only the water you need and make sure the items stay saturated in the hot water for the right amount of time.
To save water…and even more $$
- Pretreat and rinse
Typically, pretreatments need to stay on items for at least an hour. Instead of throwing pretreated items with your next load, rinse and see if the stain has come off. If not, treat again and let sit longer. Some stains need finesse to come out, most stains eventually will come out if you are patient with them.
My Favorite Pretreat Solution
- 2 parts Hydrogen Peroxide
- 1 part liquid blue soap
- enough Baking Soda to make a paste (typically equal to 1 part)
Once hydrogen peroxide is exposed to sunlight it begins to decompose, so, unfortunately, you will have to make a fresh solution each time you need it. It only takes a minute if you keep the materials on hand.
- Scrape off any excess material from the stain with a spoon.
- Turn the item inside out and rinse the stain with cold water, this pushes out any larger leftover particles.
- Back to the outside of the item, apply the solution directly onto the stain. Lightly massage it in so it works its way into the fibers.
- Let it sit for at least an hour.
- Turning the item inside out again, rinse the solution out with cold water, and check the stain.
- If it is still there, repeat but let it sit overnight.
I recreated the three common stains to show how well this treatment works. The wine and coffee washed off after an hour of pretreating. The pizza needed to sit overnight, I had nuked it to make sure it was hot enough to cause a stain. The cheese ended up deep in the fibers but did come off.
Always test a small area of the garment to make sure colors will not fade with this solution.
Pizza stain, scrape, rinse from the back, apply solution, left on overnight.
Red Wine Stain, rinse from the back, apply solution, left on for one hour.
Black Coffee Stain, rinse from the back, apply solution, left on for one hour.
Results!
Here are the previously stained swatches after they were laundered and then laid flat to dry. Perfectly white again!
1. “Background G. Laundy and Bedding.” November 5 2015. Center for Disease Control and Prevention https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/environmental/background/laundry.html. Accessed on May 11 2020.
eddys brand celebrates family and the spirit of connection and togetherness by creating essential garments for babies and toddlers, future big brothers and sisters, that can be passed down and are made to last through multiple rounds of grass stains, first teeth, and lots and lots of smiles.