Save money on Stain Removers

Don’t you hate wearing your favorite shirt or blouse and then, all of a sudden, at lunch or supper some horribly difficult to get out sauce or drink makes a bee-line for the most visible part of your clothing?  It’s usually tomato sauce or wine or coffee or something else equally hard to get out.  Your next thought is “Oh well, there goes another $100 piece of clothing out the window…”

Anyway there are cheap ways to get most kinds of stains out.  You don’t need to rush out and spend$5.95 a bottle for some stain remover since most likely you already have common household items that can remove stains just as well.

Here are the most common items and the kind of stain they can remove:

Rubbing Alcohol - can remove ink, blood, red drinks, ices, berry juices.  You can use this full strength right on the cloth.

Baking Soda - add 1/2 cup to your laundry as a general stain remover.  You can also make a paste of itby mixing with a little water and rubbing it on grease or oil stains.

Corn Starch - Make a paste (just like Baking Soda) and rub it in grease or oil stains.  Let it dry and brush off.

Club Soda - good for most stains, but use it immediately after you stain the item.

Vinegar - Vinegar is great for getting rid of smells.  I had to clean out an apartment once that had been occupied by a chain smoker.  I thought the smoke smell would never come out.  I tried all sorts of expensive cleaners, but what finally worked was washing the walls with diluted vinegar (a cup of vinegar to 2 gallons of water or so) and leaving a bowl of vinegar in each room for 24 - 48 hours.  Somebody had told me this would work.  I was totally skeptical, but I tried it and guess what?  It worked like a champ.  Vinegar can also get rid of some hard water stains, but probably not as effectively as something like CLR.

Ammonia - mix a tablespoon with 1/2 cup water.  Gets out most stains.

 Bleach - This is about the only thing that ever works for me on white cotton.

Lemon Juice - Removes persperation stains

Lime Juice - Same as Lemon juice but with the added benefit of being a natural disinfectant.

Of course there are others but this little list might be able to save you a bit on expensive cleaners.  Try all of these and see what works best.