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Getting the Red Out – Article by Jennifer Rosen, Rick Mountain News
2004.
Six weeks on crutches isn’t all bad. You develop deltoids like Superman,
and people feel sort for you an open doors. The hard part, when your
hands are your wheels, is carrying things. Scariest of all is
transporting a glass of red wine to safety over a gaping no man’s land
of white carpet.
If there’s a more frightening sight than a dark splash of red spreading
across a snowy rug, I don’t know what it is. To exorcise that chilling
image, we at the House of Klutsz test kitchens went to work to determine
the best way to get red out of white.
Our lab equipment consisted of samples of medium-pile, white wool
carpet, a large linen table-cloth ripped into pieces, and a bottle of a
red that we had no qualms in spilling.
Each cleaning method was tested on an immediate wine-spill and a spot
that had dried for 24 hours. Judging criteria: spot disappearance and
labor involved. Some cleaners that weren’t 100 percent effective are
still good to know about in an emergency when nothing else is available.
The results:
Home Remedies:
• Any combinations of salt, baking soda, cream of tartar, club soda and
white wine:
Urban legends! These things don’t work! Some cause a stunning
red-to-pink transformation, but all leave pink or brown stains.
• Detergent and water:
Useful for wiping up new spills immediately but doesn’t eradicate them
and has little effect on old ones.
• Milk:
Put stained fabric in a saucepan and cover with milk. Bring to a boil,
remove from heat and rinse when the stain is gone. It works, though
obviously impractical on carpet, but it uses a lot of milk and make a
huge mess if you let the milk boil over.
• Shaving cream:
We’re nothing if not objective here at the lab but we found ourselves
rooting for shaving cream. It smells great and it’s lovely to play with.
You spray it on, work it into the spot with your fingers, then use a
warm sponge to clean off the excess. We gave it a few extra chances to
prove itself. It was good on fabric, dried results aren’t flawless. We
tried some shaving gel too, but it turns the carpet green.
Commercial preparations:
• Avenge Stain Remover & Resolve Carpet Cleaner:
Both require lots of elbow grease and repetition. Stains remain
decidedly pink. Don’t bother.
• Carbona Stain Devils:
Fruit & Red Wine. Must be measured and dissolved in water. On carpet it
dramatically deconstructs red and turns it into….brown. Not bad on old
and new fabric stains.
• Gonzo’s Wine Out:
Decent results on carpet. Drawbacks, there’s only a tiny bit in the
bottle, and the spray pump is very hard to use; turns the fabric blue.
And the winner is…
Solution of two parts hydrogen peroxide to one part Blue Dawn
dishwashing detergent (must be freshly mixed). If you ever drink red
wine, write down this formula. It’s unbelievable. Pour a little on a
spot, rub lightly, sponge off. It left the rug so clean we couldn’t even
find the spot the next day. Impressive on fabric; not just new or
day-old stains but ancients, many times washed ones too.
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