Recipe 53 of 100 · The Country Cleans Mix Book
How to Get Grease Stains Out of Clothes
Even After the Dryer
Cooking oil, butter, salad dressing or pizza grease on a shirt? Bury the spot in cornstarch for 30 minutes (2 hours if it's heavy), brush it off, then scrub in a paste of 1 tablespoon clear dish soap and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Wait 10 minutes and wash in the hottest water the tag allows. Air dry. Old dryer-baked spots usually take two rounds.
What it fixesCooking oil splatter, butter, salad dressing, motor grease, and pizza spots, including the ones that already went through the dryer.
You need
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon clear degreasing dish soap
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 stiff nylon brush or old toothbrush
- 1 sink of the hottest water the care tag allows
Mix it
- Keep the cornstarch dry and separate in a small dish. This goes on first, by itself.
- In a second dish, stir the dish soap and baking soda into a thick gritty paste. Add nothing else, no water, the soap is already liquid.
Use it
- Blot up any liquid grease still sitting on top with a paper towel. Do not rub.
- Bury the spot in cornstarch and press it down. Leave it thirty minutes, or two hours on a heavy stain.
- Brush the powder off into the trash. It will look clumped and darker, that is the oil it pulled out.
- Now work the soap and baking soda paste into the spot with the brush, hard, for a full minute in both directions.
- Let it sit ten minutes, then wash in the hottest water the tag allows.
- Air dry and inspect. If a shadow remains, repeat before it ever sees the dryer.
Dale's noteThis is the one laundry stain where hot water helps, because heat thins oil and lets the surfactant grab it. Old dryer-baked grease usually takes two full rounds, so do not give up after one.
Don'tDo not put a greasy garment in the dryer between rounds. Dryer heat polymerizes the oil into the fiber, turning a removable spot into a permanent translucent patch that no soap will touch afterward.
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