Life Kit - How Do I Get This Out? Your Guide To Stain Removal

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

There are so many different kinds of stains — grass stains on your shorts, a wine stain on your carpet or a grease stain on your shirt — but with the help of some household products and chemistry know-how, you can be a stain removal master.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Is this Molly Wernick? This is, in fact, Molly Wernick. Molly Wernick is a Life Kit listener. I thought, wow, this is very practical knowledge. I wanted to talk to her because she listened to an episode and something really cool happened.

Molly had some loans from school and credit card debt and wasn't really making a ton of progress paying those off. But then she heard about two debt repayment strategies on LifeKit. I think it was the avalanche strategy and the snowball strategy. And so the snowball strategy really appealed to me because it said, take the loan with the lowest balance and pay it off as quickly as possible. She thought, hey, I could try that, this snowball strategy. It sounded doable. I made, I think, the biggest payment I've ever made of anything in my life from my bank account, I think. Then in a matter of minutes, my loan was totally paid off. And what did that feel like?

Good. It's exciting. It's like, okay, well, I can do this. Like, what's next? It's actually making a difference in the way that I can spend an extra $250 a month. Now I'm one step closer to being debt-free. That is super cool. And we want to make more Life Kit episodes so you can feel the way that Molly feels.

And to do that, we need your support. Make a donation to your NPR station today. Just go to donate.npr.org slash lifekit to give. When I went off to college, I packed up the family car with all my stuff. My computer, some extra long sheets for the dorm, pictures of my friends and family. And in the trunk of the car nestled between my duffel bags and a pile of dorm snacks, there was this little box that my mom had packed for this special occasion. Do you even remember? Of course I do.

It was a little pink plastic box with a lid. I'm Alyssa Nadworny, that is my mom, and this is NPR's Life Kit. My mom, Jan Bryden, is a dermatologist for her job, but she's my go-to stain encyclopedia. And that pink box, packed with concoctions and cleaning items, it was just an extension of her vast knowledge of stain removal. Because the thing my mom was most worried about when I went off to college was that I'd get clothes dirty and I wouldn't be able to get the stains out. I said, you're probably going to be doing your own laundry now. And so I said, let me put together a few things that would make it a little easier.

I have seen her get wine out of a white dress at a wedding, blood from a sleeve on a shirt, and once a whole bottle of sunscreen out of a canvas tote bag. It's pretty incredible. I've come home to Erie, Pennsylvania to spend time in my mom's laundry room. Together, we're going to brush up on these stained solutions so that ultimately, I can pass that knowledge on to you. But before we get to the tips, I have a stain that needs my mom's immediate attention. Oh, sure, honey.

I actually got guacamole on my shirt from a delicious lunch we just had. Okay, you want to try the dish detergent first. Since the guacamole has a lot of oil in it, we start with cold water and dish soap. So let's do some cold water rinse. She runs the shirt under the cold water. And then we'll put a drop of dish detergent on. And squeezes a dime-sized amount of dish soap on it. She says you don't need a lot.

Then she massages the soap into the stain with her finger. We rinse it again with cold water. There's a little tiny bit left there, you think? The stain is not quite out yet, and my mom thinks we need something to get rid of the pigment, that green stain that's left over. Let's try a tiny bit of white vinegar. We dab it with a cotton ball loaded with white vinegar, and then we rinse it again in cold water.

And voila, the remaining green color has completely disappeared. Pretty amazing, huh? Tell me what's happening. It's gone. On this episode of NPR's Life Kit, we're going to learn how to tackle the most common stains, blood, spaghetti sauce, ink. So we can keep our clothes nice and clean.

We're going to spend time in my mom's laundry room, where she'll explain what household remedies work and why. Along the way, we'll call up a few experts who actually study stains for their day job. Because the average American throws away about 80 pounds of clothes a year. Because they're stained or faded. And that's bad for the environment and our bank accounts. The Indicator is a podcast where daily economic news is about what matters to you. Workers have been feeling the sting of inflation. So as a new administration promises action on the cost of living, taxes, and home prices,

follow all the big changes and what they mean for you. Listen to The Indicator, the daily economics podcast from NPR. We've all been there. You've got a huge meeting with your boss later, and as you're wolfing down that meatball sub, splat. You get red sauce all over your shirt. Takeaway number one is act fast. You need to figure out what you can do in that moment.

Go to the bathroom and flush it out with water. Or if you have a water glass and a napkin, dab that napkin, hopefully white, in the water glass and add it to your shirt. The longer stains sit on your clothes, the more embedded in the fabric they will get. And synthetic fabrics, which are really common today, like polyester and nylon or blends, they suck the stain in even more. My mom got really good at stains when I was a kid because I was always getting food and pen all over my clothes. To be honest, I've never really grown out of it. And I'm not alone.

Here's Elizabeth Easter. She's a professor at the University of Kentucky and specializes in textiles. Adults are very good at stains as well. How many people do you know that spill spaghetti or pizza sauce on a white shirt or tie. Part of catching it early means that you have time to pre-treat it. So everything we're going to talk about today, you do this before you throw it in the washing machine. The washer's definitely somewhat magic,

but it can't remove all of the stains that appear in a laundry load. I think that laziness is the bane of all stain removal. Really? Yeah. You just say, oh, I'll do that next week. I can't do it right now. I'm too busy or I'm too bored with this stain stuff. So that is the bane of stain removal. Laziness. Laziness. Takeaway number two, identify what you're working with and think like a scientist. There's so many different kinds of stains. And by definition, there's so many different, like, chemistries that would remove different things.

Sunny Escobar is a senior scientist for Procter & Gamble. They're the company behind Tide and Donnie and lots of other laundry products. And she really is a stain expert. If you take me to a dinner party, I'll probably be your worst guest. You could have me speaking hours about stains, laundry machines, water. The most sometimes useless information, but sometimes the most helpful. She says that there are a million different ways to treat stains. But if you break stains into categories, that can help you apply some simple rules. There is truth to pre-soaking or pre-treating stains. I mean, it's, you know,

you do it with your dishes. It's the same thing with your clothes. And I talk about it as nutrition, right? Like the way, you know, you digest bread is different than you would digest baking grease. Again, it's the same way how a detergent would clean the different types of stains. The scientific thinking is helpful because we're not going to cover every stain or trick. It's just too much for one episode. But here are some guidelines. Let's first tackle oil stains. That includes lots of food like soup or mayo, spaghetti sauce or salad dressings. The fix? Use dish soap. I always remember those commercials for Dawn after the oil spill in the Gulf, how they used dish soap to clean the animals.

That's basically what we're doing on our clothes. Then there's the category of pigment stains. This is like ink or markers. For those, my go-to is rubbing alcohol. But white vinegar can also help. For berry stains like strawberries or red wine, boiling water can help. And there's no need to memorize everything. Just have a few that you know and then think like a scientist to get them out.

What is the main component behind tomato sauce? It's an oil stain. Yeah. And then you just know what to look for. It's really, to me, that's why I really use the nutrition analogy. It's a little bit about what's really, you know, what is this made of and what can we tackle it with. My mom uses this method of kind of diagnosing a stain, given its components, all the time. Here's her explaining how she got that guacamole stain out.

So sometimes you don't have a recipe for exactly what the stain is. Like I didn't know about avocado, but avocado oil, you think, okay, I better put some liquid detergent on that to break up the oil component. And then perhaps the alcohol or the white vinegar to get the green component. In that original stain box that my mom sent me off to college with, there was an index card with all of these on it. Almost like a cheat sheet. One of my favorite parts about the box that's been really helpful is you had written out... Guidelines. Guidelines, yeah. Of like, okay, if it's chocolate, use this.

Yes. If it's ink, use this. So a person can never remember, because it clearly is not at the top of their priority list. This, oh, how do you get ink out of such and such? Or vinaigrette out of something? Or wine? Is it cold water? Is it hot water? What is it? So I think it is helpful to have a little cheat sheet that is near the stain kit. So it reminds you very quickly and easily what to do first. Takeaway number three,

keep a few household items handy. Use them to make your own stain kit. So you don't need to buy fancy products. You can just go out to the drugstore or even the grocery store and get a few basic household items. In my pink stain box, which I still have and use, thank you mom, there is rubbing alcohol, white vinegar, dish soap like Dawn, and hydrogen peroxide. When I visited my mom's laundry room down in the basement, I noticed a similar box by the sink. Oh, what we have here? Well, we have my stain basket, which is kind of like your stain basket. Really basic things that anybody has in their house. Elizabeth Easter, the professor who studies stains and textiles in Kentucky,

she also has a stain box at home on the shelf near her washer. Can you tell me what would be in your stain box in your home? I have a liquid detergent or even dish detergent for the oily stains. I also have alcohol, and that's basically what you could typically buy at a drugstore is rubbing alcohol. I also have a nail polish remover that contains acetone, because if it is not removed by alcohol, in many cases acetone will be an effective remover that contains acetone because if it is not removed by alcohol, in many cases, acetone will be an effective remover. One of the hardest and most common stains is blood. When dealing with fresh blood, Easter says most folks already know to head right to the sink.

You should start with the simplest method, and that would be to see if you can flush the stain out with just water. Cold water is key for blood. Blood basically is easier to remove at body temperature or below. You can think of a protein stain as being very similar to a fresh egg that becomes hard or rigid when you cook it or fry the egg. And so you can think of blood in much the same way. It is a totally different stain once it has dried. As you may know from experience, it's a lot easier to clean a fresh egg off of the pan

than if you let it sit for a day or two. Down in my mom's laundry room, she wants to show me her approach to bloodstains. So I let her poke my finger with a sterile needle. Remember, she's a doctor. Was it too painful? I'm sorry. It's really aggressive. It's like you've been wanting to poke me with something sharp for a long time. Oh, get out of here.

We try just cold water first, but it doesn't come out. So we go to level two, hydrogen peroxide. My mom coats a cotton ball with the clear liquid and squeezes it over the blood stain so the solution drips onto the stain. You could also use an eyedropper. You can see kind of the chemicals working, like do you see the bubbling up? Yeah, just like you see bubbling up if you put that on a wound. If the hydrogen peroxide doesn't work because the blood stain is older or stubborn, Elizabeth Easter suggests ammonia. The odor is obviously powerful, but it is very effective in removing aged blood stains.

For really tough blood stains, Easter will let the stained area soak in ammonia for a few hours, or even overnight. In addition to liquids, there are some really helpful supplies to have on hand. I mentioned cotton balls, but also try a Q-tip or an eyedropper for targeting stains, and safety pins. You can put the pin next to the stain so you don't lose track of it when you're trying to clean. You can also put that cheat sheet that you made into your stain box too. Making one of those, that's takeaway number four. The other stain that I'm constantly battling is ink. I am always writing on myself.

I forget to cap my pen. I lean against my desk that has a pen on it. I literally get pen on some item of my clothes at least once a week, which is why I keep a bottle of rubbing alcohol at my desk. It works magic on ink stains. Here's the trick with using rubbing alcohol. I use cotton balls, one on either side, and so then it pushes the ink stain into the cotton ball. The other thing with ink is it can take a couple tries to get it out. When we were in my mom's basement, we were working on this really stubborn ink stain, but my mom was determined. So we were in my mom's basement, we were working on this really stubborn ink stain, but my mom was determined. So we're just going to keep putting a little more alcohol on this, and then we're going to put some cold water on it and see what happens. She repeated this,

squeezing a little bit of rubbing alcohol on the stain, rubbing it with her finger, and then rinsing under cold water. And this is the kind of stain that drives you crazy because you think you're not making any headway. And again, alcohol, cold water. She did it about six more times. And eventually, coming out just slowly, really slowly. Gotta have patience. Gotta have patience. Takeaway number five, have patience. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Don't give up on a stain. Keep trying. You can probably get 90% of the stains out if you just have a little patience and you work at it. Because sometimes you'll be really discouraged and that ink doesn't come out. And then five minutes later, you're like, wow, it's either all the way out or it's out so much that I can still wear this shirt.

The other good news, if you throw it in the washer and the stain is still not out, you can try pre-treating it again. Just throwing in the washer, it's not going to mess you up. But you've got to remember, and this is takeaway number six, and this is a really, really big deal. Whatever you do, do not, I repeat, do not put it in the dryer. The heat will set the stain and then it is game over. The dryer can set in stains and make it more difficult to remove. So catching them is key. If you put it in the dryer, you are screwed. Okay, on to the takeaways. Number one, act fast. The sooner the stain is identified, the better.

Pre-treat before you throw it in the washing machine. Takeaway number two, identify what you're working with and think like a scientist. Takeaway number three, keep a few household items handy. Make a stain kit. And number four, put a cheat sheet in that stain kit. Takeaway number five, have patience. Keep at it. And finally, takeaway number six, whatever you do, do not put it in the dryer until you've gotten the stain out.

For more NPR Life Kit, check out our other episodes. I hosted one on how to do well and be happy in college. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. And while you're there, subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss an episode. And here, as always, is a completely random tip. Okay, it's not so random because this one's for me and it's about stains. Another bonus stain tip. Okay, so basically you take boiling water and you pour it onto a wine stain. It has to be pretty fresh. And the wine stain literally runs out in front of your eyes.

It's like the best party trick. We would love to hear from you. What stains have trumped you? What remedies have worked? What are we missing? Let us know. Email us at lifekit at npr.org. This episode was produced by Sylvie Douglas.

Megan Cain is the managing producer. I'm Alyssa Nadworny. Thank's your advice. Yeah, yeah, right. This message comes from Grammarly. 89% of business leaders say AI is a top priority. The right choice is crucial, which is why teams at one-third of Fortune 500 companies use Grammarly. With top-tier security credentials and 15 years of experience in responsible AI, Grammarly isn't just another AI communication assistant. It's how companies like yours increase productivity while keeping data protected and private. See why 70,000 teams trust Grammarly at grammarly.com slash enterprise.