DIY: Stain Remover

So, the DIY detergent has been a dream. It is gentle on clothing, cleans well, deodorizes, and generally does an overall great job with very little impact on our budget. We've even been pleased to see that it is highly recommended for washing baby clothes as well - which I'm pretty psyched about as I feel like Dreft is just the biggest scam out there.

We have been so pleased with our DIY detergent that as Lil' Girl's arrival approaches, we our expanding our greener, DIY-ness into other areas of house cleaning.

Let's talk about stain removal.

The Hubs and I went to Vancouver, BC recently. While there we went to Don Guacamole's. It was decent. I had the mole. My white pants and Hub's white shirt also got a taste of the mole. Immediately, I gave up on these items. Every mole recipe is different - so, there is no predicting what is actually in the mixture. It is safe to say, however, that you are dealing with the stain trifecta of "ain't never comin' out" - chocolate, maybe tomato paste, and oil.  We caught Hub's stain immediately and treated it with a soak. Didn't catch the stain in my white pants until it had already dried two days later. BLEH.

I hate stains. I take it personally when they don't come out. I kind of obsess about them. That being said, I immediately went to work trying to figure out how to get rid of a stain using what was in my house - instead of going out and buying a specialty item. So, first, I cheated and put some Shout on it and gave it a warm wash. The Shout did nothing. So, after some of my own shouting, I made a paste from our homemade detergent and scrubbed the affected spots with a toothbrush (for both chocolate and tomato elements of stain)- this followed by another warm wash - some improvement. Lastly, I took some of our homemade liquid dish detergent and scrubbed again with the toothbrush (this is particularly recommended for oil stains) - stains on the shirt, gone. For the white pants, I caved and washed one more time with some Clorox. Hubs LUVS Clorox and our hous will just not be without it.

All in all, I was really pleased to be able to salvage two favorite pieces of clothing, as well as our budget.