Watch stubborn food stains ‘disappear’ before your eyes with this simple stain hack – and you won’t need any bleach
There’s nothing worse than dropping or spilling food down your nice, pristine clothes, especially if the garments are light or white. There really is nowhere to hide from a vibrant stain.
If you’re struggling with removing stubborn stains from your clothes, a cleaning guru argued that you shouldn’t be using bleach to tackle them. Instead, households should be treating their stains with an item that everyone has access to in their homes.
Chantel Mila, better known as Mama Mila on TikTok, shared her newfound stain-removal hack. All you need to tackle annoying and unsightly food stains is a kettle of boiling water.
Chantel wrote in the video’s caption: “You’ve been removing stains wrong this whole time, this method uses no bleach, no scrubbing – literally just boiling water! I was sceptical until I tried it, but it literally lifts stubborn stains in seconds.
“Watch closely, and you’ll see the stain lifting immediately! This should be suitable for most cotton and linen materials that can handle heat, but some materials like silk, prints and wool can’t handle it.”
All you need to do is boil a kettle full of water. Lay the stained garment into an empty sink and pour boiling water over it.
You want to make sure you pour the water directly onto each mark. The stains should “disappear” before your eyes.
Chantel tested this hack out on stains made by berries, tomato sauce, and coloured energy drinks. She said: “My mind is actually blown.”
However, boiling water shouldn’t be used to treat every type of food stain. In fact, it could actually make the stains worse by setting them in the fabric.
Jackie Ashley, co-founder of Ashley & Co. Everyday Launder, told Martha Stewart: “Hot water can cause some stains to set or harden—especially protein-based ones like egg, blood, sweat, grass, and food stains—making them tougher to remove. It can also cause dyes to bleed and spread.”
Protein-based stains like blood, sweat, dairy, eggs, breastmilk, and meat juice should always be treated with cold water, as should any blemishes made by grass, mud and soil. Using hot water can also make ink and paint stains worse.
To treat, place the stained fabric face down and rinse with cold water from the back to prevent the pigment from spreading. Any laundry with these types of stains should be washed separately from other clothes, as the stain could potentially bleed onto them.
If you’ve accidentally split red wine or tea on yourself, these stains can be incredibly tricky to remove. Using only hot water makes this task even more challenging.
According to Martha Stewart: “Heat can lock in the tannins (the natural compounds these bevvies may include), making the pigment more difficult to remove fully.”
The cleaning expert actually argued that using hot water to wash fruit and vegetable-based stains is counterproductive. The expert explained: “Like wine, tomatoes and berries contain similarly hard-to-remove compounds that give these foods their naturally vivid hues.
“Washing them with hot water will only set them into the fibres (much like natural fabric dyes). Gentle stain removers like mild dish soaps and distilled white vinegar, plus cold water, are effective options.”
