Wine stains can easily ruin both a thin tablecloth and your favorite outfit. However, the red marks on the fabric - this is not a sentence, and not necessarily throw away your favorite jeans or elegant dress, decorated with wine blots. If you know several ways to deal with them, you can even get rid of old stains on your clothes.
What are the spots?
Red wine stains are complex and resilient. The point here is the chemical composition of this alcoholic beverage. Due to the presence of such an element as anthocyanin, the liquid quickly dyes the fabric, and after the pigment has penetrated into the structure of the tissue, it is very difficult to get rid of such contamination. But, if you are still determined, then you can safely engage in the struggle for the purity of your clothes. First of all, the choice of available tools depends on how old the stains you have to clean.
Fresh
If you have the opportunity, then, of course, it is better to work with a fresh spot. If you just spilled wine on clothes, then the chances of completely cleaning the surface of the fabric are much higher. In case you spilled a drink during some kind of feast, you can try to get rid of the traces with some other alcohol. Try to fill them with warm vodka or wine, but already white. And in fact, and in the other drink in the composition is ethyl alcohol. It helps to effectively remove traces of red.
By the way, white wine also contains organic acids, which also help to combat such pollution.
There are several other tools that also help well:
- Freshly squeezed lemon juice. It is necessary to put it in a small amount on the fabric and in a few minutes to wipe the stain with a dry cloth.
- Alternatively, sprinkle the stain with citric acid.
- If you have the opportunity to immediately wash the contaminated thing, you can use warm milk. Soak the cloth in it and hold it for about half an hour.
After this time, the thing must be rinsed in clean water at room temperature.
Old stains
If you work with dirt that "decorate" the surface of the fabric for a long time, then you need to use slightly different methods. For a long time, the color eats into the fabric, so clean it is much more difficult, but still possible. Most effectively in this case work various chemical bleaches. Wine stains can be cleaned using Domestos.
It is best to take not the usual means, but one that is designed specifically for washing clothes or other delicate materials. This is especially true if you plan to clean some thin and elegant fabric.
Using ready-made fabric cleaners is even easier than improvised:
- You just need to pour a little liquid on the spot and leave it all for a few minutes.
- When the product works, you need to gently rinse the thing in cold water.
- Alternatively, many housewives recommend the use of pharmacies, such as sodium hydrosulfate. It should be applied to the contaminated place for a couple of minutes, and then poured over with a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. This will discolor the material.
- The final stage of purification is the use of acetic acid, but it is worth considering that acetic acid should be very well diluted with running water.
Necessary accessories
As you can see, you can use many products, both chemical and improvised, to cleanse the fabric of red wine. A spectacular way to cleanse the fabric - the use of commercial stain removers. They work quite well, so you can safely use this tool.
It works on both colored and white fabric. But you always need to ensure that the chemical product is fully suited to you.
First of all, look at the label to see if the product is suitable for your type of fabric. If not, the product may well not only not remove the stain, but also damage the fabric itself. Also, always pay attention to temperature and other tips on how to wash the material and how much to keep a chemical product on its surface. If you do not want to take risks and use stain removers, or you simply don’t have them at hand when you need to urgently remove the trace of wine, then pay attention to household items that will replace your chemistry. They need to be selected individually, focusing on the material.
Emergency helpers are suitable for fresh stains:
- Finely ground salt or fresh lemon juice. Salt is a good remedy that will save you if you are dealing with delicate tissues that cannot be treated with chemical or pharmaceutical drugs.
- Many women also recommend using simple laundry soap, which was previously used to solve almost all household problems, to clean cloth from wine stains. If you carefully lather the cloth and soak for a couple of minutes, then you can forget about the pollution after the first wash.
Features cleaning materials
If you choose the right means and method of cleaning the fabric, then the probability that you will successfully remove the stain will be much higher.
the cloth
The thinner and sleeker the material, the neater you need to work with it:
- If you messed up cotton thing, for example, a jacket, T-shirt or a new tablecloth, it can be cleaned with warm milk. Heat it, but don't let it boil. If the stain is small, then it should be gently soaked with warm milk, using a napkin, for example. Then the thing should be left alone for a few minutes, and when the milk works, wash it.
- Wool and silk, despite external differences, in fact, are just the materials that must be handled with the utmost care. They are recommended to be cleaned using a mixture of wine alcohol and glycerin. Proportions should be equal. Contamination should be treated with a cotton pad moistened with this compound. The fabric will be cleaned after one and a half to two hours. After that, it can be washed in order to get rid of residual solution. In this way, warm sweaters and silk dresses or shirts can be cleaned.
- Often drops of red wine fall. on jeans or other denim products. This material quickly absorbs the wine, so if you have the opportunity, it is better to work on the spot immediately after you put it. With denim, traces of alcohol can be removed with salt or soda - just sprinkle the stain and wait until the product is absorbed.
An old wine stain from such clothes can be removed by mixing dish detergent with a small amount of peroxide.
- Often the victim of unsuccessful gatherings over a glass of wine becomes carpet. Since it cannot be shoved into a washing machine, and on the whole it is quite inconvenient to wash, you have to go a little different way. It is well suited to either salt or a mixture of egg yolk and glycerin. Both products are applied to the carpet with a soft sponge slightly moistened with warm water. After the salt or yolk has absorbed the main pigment, you can proceed to the cleaning. To do this, it is advised to use only products designed specifically for cleaning carpets. They cope with pollution more efficiently and faster, and do not harm the surface of the floor covering.
If you are dealing with a more delicate and thin fabric, then it should not be washed - just blot the contaminated area with a piece of cotton or a cotton pad dipped in a mixture of glycerin, ammonia and vodka.
Colour
In addition to the type of fabric, it is important to take into account its color. In general, all materials can be divided into color and white. It is not difficult to guess that it is most difficult to remove a stain from a white fabric. Even the traces of light sprays are noticeable on it, which already speaks of the full traces that remain after you spilled the contents of the glass on the tablecloth, or, even worse, on your own outfit.
To fight for the purity of light-colored fabric, there are three main ways:
- The most common is to use peroxide in the contaminated area. She is the one who is able to bring the wine pigment out of the light fabric most effectively. It is enough just to wipe the material with it, put the thing aside for ten minutes, and then wash it in warm water. The result is likely to please you and pleasantly surprise.
- Another effective remedy that can be found in almost every home is ordinary vinegar. It is also used to wipe the fabric. The thing is then left alone for half an hour and erased.
- As an alternative to vinegar on white things, citric acid solution can also be used. To prepare it, you just need to pour 2 g of acid with a glass of warm water. Citric acid, by the way, helps to remove traces from unsuccessful gatherings, even with things that you have long been desperate to clean, and fresh lemon juice is perfect for fresh stains.
It is necessary to work with colored fabrics in other ways:
- Effective is the use of a solution of potassium permanganate. Although at first glance it seems that this colored liquid will only aggravate the problem, in practice this is far from the case. A solution of potassium permanganate fabric should be treated immediately before washing. The solution should not be very concentrated - just add one teaspoon of potassium permanganate powder to a glass of water.
- The second option is the use of glycerin and yolk. Such an unexpected combination of simple products allows for surprisingly good results. The yolk is used raw. In equal quantities, it must be mixed and applied for two hours on the fabric, which after this time must be washed. The tool works great on old stains.
But bleach on colored fabric is not recommended at all. They will make the fabric faded, which does not improve the situation. The only more or less suitable option is high-quality stain removers designed specifically for cleaning printed items. For more information on how to clean the stain of red wine, see the following video.
How can I wash it off?
If you have just tipped a glass of wine on the cloth and are looking for a quick way to save the situation, then you can try to wash off the pollution with a napkin or a cotton sponge soaked with water. If this is done on time, then you will not have to wash old stains from the fabric.
Red wine will still leave a light footprint, but if you pre-treat the fabric with a damp cloth, then it will be much easier to cope with this problem at home.
If you have the opportunity immediately after such a passage to get to the bathroom, then wash the contaminated fabric will be even easier. Use soap, water and alcohol. The correct and effective composition, which really helps you remove traces of wine, consists of a spoon of alcohol, a liter of water and a small piece of laundry soap, which will dissolve after a few minutes.
In this composition it is necessary to soak the soiled piece of fabric for twenty minutes, and after the thing is soaked, you can easily remove the dirt, stretching the fabric.
But what is definitely not worth doing is in a hurry, try to wash the red wine from the surface of the fabric with hot water. This can lead to a completely opposite result - the wine will only penetrate deeper into the fabric structure, and when you try to wash the material in any other way, the stain will only turn blue or turn green.
Recommendations
Finally, you need to mention a few additional recommendations that will help to cope with wine stains:
- First, if there is a possibility, then better deal with this problem right away. The faster you wash the pigment from the fabric, the easier it will be to withdraw it completely. Keep in mind that in this emergency situation, hot water is the enemy, and quality white wine is a good helper. This trick is advised to the hostesses of the most famous wine lovers in the world - the French.
- It is also worth remembering that you can prevent "sprawling" spots across a large area. To do this, begin to clean or wash off alcohol from the edges, and not from the center of the stain.
- All of these available tools work in most cases, but, alas, not always. Sometimes the stain does not appear at all or it has already ingrained itself so deeply that no matter how much it is processed, the light color remains. If such a fate befell your favorite thing that you don’t want to throw out at all, then you can give it one last chance by using dry cleaning services.
As you can see, stains from wine are not always a sentence for your favorite thing. Any experienced hostess will cope with the cleaning of such pollution quickly and without panic, but it is important to consider all the recommendations.