Removing a Wine Stain is Easy - But You Have to be Quick

By Ginger Lowey

Why is it that more red wine seems to get spilt by guests than any other beverage? It's probably due to the fact that the drinker knows only too well that a glass of colored wine spilt on your favorite shag pile can wreak havoc with the fabric. Therefore, wine drinkers are nervous and jittery around other folk's homes and probably this makes them a little clumsy too! A wine stain can discolor just about any fabric it comes into contact with, so it's no laughing matter, especially if it happens to you!

A red wine stain never ends up on your overalls or kitchen floor, oh no, it waits until it's hovering over your best frock or white rug before it jumps out of the glass. OK, so that's a little melodramatic, but wine is the stain from hell that's for sure, which is why we dread it so much.

There is a solution! Not all wine stains are red, although red wind is the most noticeable, but white wine can leave some pretty unsightly marks too. When you need to tackle a wine stain, the first job in hand is to pour some cold water onto the area as quickly as possible. This will instantly dilute the wine before it has time to settle in, and therefore makes removal much easier.

Should you spill the wine on removable items, such as your clothing or bedding etc, the best approach is to pour the cold water from the back. Turn the cloth inside out and flush it from behind. I've always found this method the most effective when removing a wine stain.

Once you've flushed the garment or rinsed the rug, the diluted wine then needs to be tackled with a spot of household laundry detergent. Gently rub the detergent into the wet fabric and then allow it to stand for at least 5 minutes but no longer than 10. If you don't have any laundry detergent handy, a drop of washing up liquid should work if you catch the spill quickly.

There is a better method for getting a wine stain out of carpets and rugs, and that is to use a carpet spot cleaner. Some of these can work wonders and I always make sure I have one in the house these days, just in case! Spot cleaners are available just about everywhere, and many are produced to tackle specific stains too, which makes them ideal items to keep in the cleaning cupboard.

If your stain shows signs of stubbornness on your cloths or bedding, as some do depending on the fabric they get spilt onto, then I suggest you soak for longer and then put through the washing cycle. As for carpets and rugs, if the stain is still visible, then professional cleaning may be the only way to remove it if it bothers you that much. As with most stains, the sooner it's tackled the better. Therefore, if you have a spill on Monday and then call the experts out the following Friday, you're probably not going to get the results you want.

Be careful too about all the misinformation out there. I've seen products used to remove wine stains such as ammonia, club soda, milk, hand soap, salt talc and even toothpaste to name but a few, but some may cause more harm than good. I've even seen one cure for the red wine stain by pouring white wine over the red. I'm not saying it doesn't work, just be careful with some of these remedies and get to know your fabrics and how to clean them in an emergency.

By soaking, using detergents, and rinsing, is still the best and safest solution overall, along with spot cleaners for carpets and rugs.

Ginger Lowey is a proficient writer and webmaster of Cleanwhatever dot com where she has articles on Cleaning Cat Urine From Floors and Ultrasonic cleaning – Now used on teeth! She also has other ‘cleaning’ related pieces on the site.