Stains…..Be Gone!!

For the most part, you know if you’ve spilled something on your blouse or dress; however, when you have five grandchildren running around the house, most of the time you have no idea what has spilled on the clothes.   I’m here to tell you that if you simply throw those clothes in the washer – wash and dry them – some of those stains will be there permanently!  Here are a few tips to help you with the stains.

**If you KNOW something has been spilled or splattered on your garment – even if a stain doesn’t show up when it dries, wash the garment or take it to the cleaners as soon as possible.  If washing it at home, pretreating the areas may prevent setting the stain in.  If taking the garment to the dry cleaners, let them know about the spillage so they can pretreat the garment to help prevent the brown spots from showing up after the cleaning/heating process.

** Ink marks will usually come out of washable fabrics if you’ll spray them first with hair spray.  Spray the spot and gently rub it several times, then throw it in the washer.

** Be sure to wash garments that you have treated for stains immediately – don’t lay them aside for days or a week before washing.

** Even if there is a spot only on the jacket of a suit, ALWAYS take both pieces to the cleaners, or wash both if the garment is washable.  This prevents one piece from losing color faster than the other piece.

** To remove a lipstick stain on silk, place a piece of masking tape over the stain, quickly pull it off, and then dab off any remaining color with talcum powder.

** Chocolate stains on washable clothing can be easily removed by saturating the stains with carbonated water and then laundering the garments in the usual manner.

** To easily remove red wine stains out of washable garments, coat with table salt and rinse with water.

** A dry cleaners’ secret….. saliva can take blood spots out of fabrics.

If you have any other methods you use to get out spots, we’d love to have you pass them along!