We present five ways to remove stubborn tomato ketchup stains from your clothes.
Pizzas, sandwiches, bagels, buns…all of them are made doubly delicious with a generous helping of tomato ketchup. But while adding a zing to your food, tomato ketchup causes big problems when it splashes on your clothes. Ketchup stains are quite difficult to clean!
Tomatoes exhibit a bleaching and staining property, with the chemical dyes in it giving each tomato its distinct orange or red colour. These dyes are extremely reactive in nature, and are able to bleach everything they come in contact with, including skin, teeth and fabrics. Hence, the stain they leave behind is often quick to set. This becomes a problem when tomato ketchup is spilled on the clothes.
Ketchup stains can be notoriously hard to clean, and they almost always leave a faint orange smear on the clothes despite the most vigorous cleaning methods. You need a powerful stain removing agent to leech off the stain by removing the discolouration and lifting the stain out of the clothes entirely.
Here are five ways to remove ketchup stains from your clothes:
1 First off, rinse the stain as soon as possible. The more time you take to get the ketchup off, the more the stain will set. Scrape away excess dried ketchup with a knife. Do not rub the fabric when you rinse it – simply hold it inside out under running water for a minute.
2 Add a couple of drops of liquid clothes detergent to the stain and set it aside for 10 minutes. The detergent breaks down the enzymes in the ketchup stains. Now wash off the stain with hot water. If it has lightened considerably at this stage, you can finish off this step by rubbing fresh lemon juice on the stain. Leave for an hour and wash with hot water.
3 If your clothes are able to withstand it, use diluted ammonia on the stain and leave for 5 minutes. Rinse off with cold water. Ammonia has a bleaching property that will lighten the stain, but be careful to apply it only on the stain and not on the surrounding fabric.
4 Mix baking soda in a few drops of white vinegar and apply the paste carefully on the stain. Take care not to smear the paste on the rest of the fabric. Allow to dry, then wash with cold water.
5 Add a scoop of stain removing powder to about four litres of warm water and soak the stained garment for an hour. Remove from the bucket and wash as usual in the washing machine, adding a measure of the stain removing powder to the laundry load.
Pizzas, sandwiches, bagels, buns…all of them are made doubly delicious with a generous helping of tomato ketchup. But while adding a zing to your food, tomato ketchup causes big problems when it splashes on your clothes. Ketchup stains are quite difficult to clean!
Tomatoes exhibit a bleaching and staining property, with the chemical dyes in it giving each tomato its distinct orange or red colour. These dyes are extremely reactive in nature, and are able to bleach everything they come in contact with, including skin, teeth and fabrics. Hence, the stain they leave behind is often quick to set. This becomes a problem when tomato ketchup is spilled on the clothes.
Ketchup stains can be notoriously hard to clean, and they almost always leave a faint orange smear on the clothes despite the most vigorous cleaning methods. You need a powerful stain removing agent to leech off the stain by removing the discolouration and lifting the stain out of the clothes entirely.
Here are five ways to remove ketchup stains from your clothes:
1 First off, rinse the stain as soon as possible. The more time you take to get the ketchup off, the more the stain will set. Scrape away excess dried ketchup with a knife. Do not rub the fabric when you rinse it – simply hold it inside out under running water for a minute.
2 Add a couple of drops of liquid clothes detergent to the stain and set it aside for 10 minutes. The detergent breaks down the enzymes in the ketchup stains. Now wash off the stain with hot water. If it has lightened considerably at this stage, you can finish off this step by rubbing fresh lemon juice on the stain. Leave for an hour and wash with hot water.
3 If your clothes are able to withstand it, use diluted ammonia on the stain and leave for 5 minutes. Rinse off with cold water. Ammonia has a bleaching property that will lighten the stain, but be careful to apply it only on the stain and not on the surrounding fabric.
4 Mix baking soda in a few drops of white vinegar and apply the paste carefully on the stain. Take care not to smear the paste on the rest of the fabric. Allow to dry, then wash with cold water.
5 Add a scoop of stain removing powder to about four litres of warm water and soak the stained garment for an hour. Remove from the bucket and wash as usual in the washing machine, adding a measure of the stain removing powder to the laundry load.