Family of Brands
Question
I am trying to get a chili stain out of the cuff of a cotton shirt. It has narrow red and green pin stripes on a white background. Unfortunately, I did not notice the stain until about week after it happened.
My wife and I have tried scrubbing the stain with a brush and Shout Action Gel Advanced for set-in stains, Regular Shout, vinegar, lemon juice, Goo Gone, and a paste of baking soda to no avail. I should add that we washed the shirt in COLD water after treating and only dried it once after the first washing. We have not used Clorox® Disinfecting Bleach (yet) because we did not know what effect it might have on the colored pin stripes.
Do you have any suggestions, or is it just a “lost cause” because of the time that has elapsed?
Answer
One of the best things to use for food grease stains including chili oil is actually liquid dishwashing detergent (the kind you use for hand washing dishes), because it is formulated for greasy dishes. Dish detergents with petroleum based cleaning agents work the best. Because liquid dishwashing detergent generally makes lots and lots of suds, you only want to use it for pretreating and rinse it away before you put the item in a clothes washer; otherwise you’ll likely end up with excessive foam. You still should be able to get the stain out; here’s what you can try:
- Work on the stains when the fabric is dry. That is, don’t rinse them with water first.
- Apply enough liquid dishwashing detergent to saturate each stain and gently massage it in.
- Wait 5 minutes, and then rinse with warm water. Dish detergent should not go in a clothes washer so be sure to rinse thoroughly.
- Pretreat again, this time with Clorox 2® For Colors Stain Remover and Laundry Additive to get the colored portion of the stain out. Rub a a little into any remaining stain. Wait 10 minutes (set a timer to help you keep track of the time).
- After 10 minutes of pretreating, machine wash the shirt in warm water using detergent and a little more Clorox2®.
- Air dry and check for success.
I know the air drying step can be a real pain, but it’s important—damp or wet fabric can hide residual oil left behind. If you miss any of the oily stains when you pretreat with the dishwashing detergent, you’ll probably have some residual oil that you can get all the way out by repeating the treatment starting again on dry fabric.
