Today's Laundry Tips

General Tips

• Use cold water to prevent protein stains such as blood, eggs, or dairy from setting.
• Use a nail scrub brush or toothbrush to scrub a stain.
•  Rub white bar soap on the stain.
• Add 1/4 cup of baking soda or 1 cup of cider vinegar to your every day laundry to brighten clothes.
• Add 1 cup of ammonia or 1/2 cup of pine disinfectant cleaner to your everyday laundry as an added stain and odor remover. 

Food Stains

Alcohol

• Soak in cool water, then wash in warm, sudsy water.
• Grape Juice or Chocolate
• Pretreat stain with and enzyme product.
• Rub with club soda until stain is gone.
• Wash chocolate with sudsy water with a little ammonia.
• Use a dry cleaning solvent.
• Remove a fresh grape juice stain from cotton or linen by immediately pouring hot water through the material.

Coffee or Tea

• Sponge the stain with cool water.
• Soak clothing in 1 quart lukewarm water, ½  teaspoon dishwashing liquid, and 1 teaspoon white vinegar.

Food Coloring Stain

• Rub with toothpaste and rinse with cold water.

Juice

• Rub the stain with cold water then soak in a quart of warm water with 1 tablespoon of ammonia and ½ teaspoon of liquid detergent.
• Apply baking soda to the stain.

Ketchup

• Apply baking soda to the stain.

Milk

• Sprinkle on unflavored meat tenderizer and rinse in cold water.
• Presoak in enzyme product for 30 minutes if stain is new, several hours if stain is old.

Salad Dressing and Oil-Based Sauces

• Apply cornstarch to the spot to absorb grease.

Wine

• Soak a red wine stain with white wine and rinse in cool water.
• Use and enzyme laundry detergent.
• Rinse white wine with cool water.

Baby Stains

• Drool
• Apply baking soda to the stain.

Formula and Spit-Up

• Keep and spray bottle of warm water mixed with baking soda handy to prevent spit-up from setting on clothing.
• Soak in a covered bucket of warm water mixed with 1 cup of borax. Add another cup of  borax to the wash cycle.
• For color-safe clothes, add to warm water ½ cup of dishwashing detergent  and  ½ cup of color safe bleach and soak over night.
• Flush the stain with water immediately and spot-clean with diluted ammonia.

Urine

• Presoak clothing in 1 quart of warm water, ½ teaspoon of mild liquid detergent, and 1 tablespoon of ammonia.
• Follow treatment of ammonia with vinegar or lemon.
• If all else fails, try and enzyme paste for 20 minutes.
• Note: Do not treat with bleach, as it may possibly create toxic chlorine gas.

Outdoor Stains

• Dirt, Mud, and Grease
• Rub on carpet cleaner before washing.
• Rub grease with shortening or lard to absorb in, then scrape off lard before putting in washer.
• Boil stained white socks in water with lemon slices.

Grass

• Rub with a solution of one part rubbing alcohol to two parts water on colorfast material.
• Rub with liquid detergent or shampoo for oily hair.
• Pretreat stains on clothes by rubbing in non-gel white toothpaste with a toothbrush. Let sit overnight, then wash.

Other Stains

• Blood
• Soak in cold water and then rub with soap until stain almost disappears, then launder.
• Apply a paste of cornstarch and water, then allow it to dry.
• Sprinkle a layer of table salt on top of stain.
• Rub on hydrogen peroxide, then soak in cold water for ½ an hour.
• If all else fails, add ammonia to the wash cycle.

Crayons

• Place the fabric on an ironing board, then cover stain with wax paper and iron on high heat.
• Gum
• Put clothing in the freezer or freeze the stain with and ice cube, then scrape off the gum once it is hard.
• Remove gum from hair with peanut butter.
• Soften gum with egg white and then scrap gum off.
• Rub a little odorless paint thinner in to dissolve the gum, them launder separately.

Ink

• Loosen stain with hairspray.
• Moisten with a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid, 1 quart of warm water, and 1 teaspoon of white vinegar (don’t use vinegar on cotton or linen). Blot and repeat. Let sit 30 minutes.
• Presoak the stain in milk

Ballpoint Ink

• Apply lukewarm glycerin, blot, and flush with water.
• Add several drops of ammonia and blot.
• Flush with water.

Nail Polish

• Sponge the stain with acetone-based mail polish remover and let dry.

Paint

• Flush latex paint with warm water.
• Flush oil-based paint with  turpentine.

Perspiration

• Pre-treat by rubbing the area with baking soda.
• Soak fabric for one hour in water with 3 dissolved asprin.

Rust

• Soak in salt and lemon juice.

Yellow Stains

• Spray oven cleaner on the spot and let it dry. Take care not to get any on your skin.
• For yellowed white cottons or linens , wash in hot water and twice as much detergent. Stop the cycle 15 minutes in and soak the clothing for 15 minutes. Start again and repeat the cycle.