The Worst Stains and How to Remove Them

Stubborn stains are the bane of existence for many moms, dads, and busy people. No one wants to see their favorite appliances disfigured by unsightly stains or see stains locked into their favorite clothing when doing the laundry. The tips below will help you get rid of even the most stubborn stains.

Appliance Stains

Kitchen appliances are notorious collectors of accumulated grease, food stains and spills. It can be easy to remove stains and restore your appliances to their original beauty with a little elbow grease.

• It’s easy for the glass carafe of coffee makers to become stained and discolored. Try a half and half mixture of vinegar and water. Run it through the full coffee making cycle and rinse thoroughly. Your coffee will taste fresher and your carafe will sparkle.
• Scrub the exterior of your stainless steel dishwasher or refrigerator with regular household cleaner. Scrub carefully, though, with a soft cloth to avoid ugly scratches.
• Tomato and other veggie stained food processors and blenders can easily shine again. Fill these stained countertop appliances with hot water, a few drops of dishwashing liquid, and a half teaspoon of bleach. Run for one minute and rinse well, then wipe the exterior.
• Plastic coated appliances like toasters can develop a yellow tinge over time. You can restore them to their original clean sheen with a cloth or sponge dampened with a mixture of bleach, baking soda, and water. Wipe the appliance, let it sit for ten minutes, and wipe again.
• Clean up spills and splatter as soon as possible because an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.

Laundry Stains

The key to handling laundry stains in to get them out of clothing before they go through the washer – and especially the dryer – and set in. That’s where pre-treaters come in. Try pretreating laundry stains with an enzyme based detergent or commercial pre-treatment solution.

• Get rid of grass stains by treating with one of the solutions above. Rub directly into the stain and wash as you normally would. White vinegar and water works wonders on grass stains as well.
• Chocolate may be the stuff of dreams when you’re eating it, but not when it’s staining your clothes. Gently scrub with one of the recommended solutions and a soft bristle toothbrush and wash as usual in hot water.
• If you catch them right away, you don’t need a pre-treater to get rid of blood stains. Simply treat blood stains by soaking as soon as possible in plain cold water.
• Banish grease stains by rinsing quickly, then following up with a soak in laundry detergent. Give the detergent time to soak up the grease before adding it to your laundry.
• Blot – don’t scrub – ink stains, treat with pre-treater, soak for a minute or two, and wash using an enzyme based detergent.

Whenever you can, pre-treat stains as quickly as possible. Treating them while they’re fresh is much easier than scrubbing them when they’ve dried. Also, inspect each item before you launder it to ensure stains don’t set in. These tips and the ones listed above will help keep your home and laundry stain-free and gleaming