If you know me by now, you know I am all about cleaning, organization, and decor… AKA I like nice stuff and I like to keep it nice…
You also probably know that I am OBSESSED with Olive Garden. Chicken Margrita… ooooo she’s goooood… It’s a garlic butter pond of deliciousness!
But when a zucchini slice slips off your fork right into that pond of buttery garlic goodness… you end up with THIS:
You can only imagine the absolute horror on my face after THIS happened literally the FIRST TIME I wore this brand new sweatshirt…
I don’t cry often, but this was instant tears. I had just graduated college, just gotten my first real job, and bought this overly priced Nike sweatshirt. I also was drowning in student loan debt with my grace period ending soon… So I felt guilty for buying this sweatshirt in the first place…
Anyway, I instantly texted this photo to my mom (love that lady) with every sad faced emoji I could find. And thus… the ultimate stain removing technique was born!
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Step 1
Put a small dab of Dawn dish soap on each stain. Gently rub it around with your finger, rag, or toothbrush.
Be very gentle. If you scrub too hard, you might end up pushing the stain farther into the fabric. Soap creates a micelle around dirt and oil, which is how the stain will get lifted from the fabric. You can use a small amount of water if you need deeper action.
After gently rubbing the stains with Dawn dish soap, let this set for 30 to 60 minutes.
Step 2
Squirt on some Zout onto each stain. Again, gently rub this into the fabric but with intentions of lifting the stain, not setting it in.
Let this set for another 60 minutes.
Step 3
Launder the article of clothing like normal. At this point, the soap and Zout should have bound to the oil, dirt, or grease and will be removed. If you want to give your laundry detergent an extra boost, try adding in some Borax.
For this particular sweatshirt, I used my go-to Arm & Hammer laundry detergent. However, if I would have know about the cleaning powers of Powdered Tide at the time, then I definitely would have used that.
Powdered Tide has a variety of different surfactants in it which is why it is a cleaning machine. Surfactants help reduce the surface tension of water, which allows for emulsification of the gunk you’re trying to remove.
Now would be a great time to break out the Powdered Tide!
And Boom!
This should be all it takes to remove new and set in stains. If there are stains still lingering after the article has been washed, repeat this process. There were a couple of stains on my sweatshirt that had to get hit 2 or 3 times, but it came out looking brand new!
This post is all about how to get stains out like a pro. Like this content? You will LOVE these posts:
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