Cleaning Up Stains and Spills

People like to act fast with stains because experience shows that a liquid that sets is harder to get out. But if you change just one thing about how you treat stains, it should be this: Slow down. Springing into action at an amazing speed is not the answer. First up, you'll probably spread the stain more by dashing about. Second, you need a few moments to decide on the best course of action.

Doing the wrong thing to a stain can be worse than doing nothing at all. Water that is too hot can set some stains, making them impossible to get out later. Any water at all on a fabric that is dry-clean-only can permanently ruin the material. Or even if it does no permanent harm water can make your stain shifting take much longer. Just compare sweeping up a spot of dry ash from the hearth to getting wet soot from the carpet. So with stains, as well as treatment, you have to be aware of damage limitation.

However often life throws stains at you, it's still hard to keep in your mind exactly how to treat them all. Keep just five things in mind:

• Keep it dry. Reach for the soft brush before the wet cloth. Never add water to stains formed from totally dry powders. This is especially true for things dropped onto the carpet.

• Keep it calm. There is more time than you think before a wet spill turns into a set stain. In normal temperatures and situations, liquids give you more than a few seconds of thinking time.

• Keep it white. Blot up spills using white cloths only. A colorful napkin can create a second stain problem.

• Keep it cool. When you decide to try washing your wet stain away, always go to the cold tap, unless you specifically know otherwise.

• Keep it simple. Modern biological detergents are great. Once you get home, these will shift practically everything. So don't let what's bound to be a temporary stain ruin your fun.

Taking six steps to treat every fresh stain

Whenever you're able to react right away to an accident, there's a very high chance that you'll succeed at removing all trace. So think action, not crisis. Whatever you spill, this handy step-by-step process will work for you.

1. Limit the damage.

Take a plain white (not colored) paper or cloth towel to a liquid spill and, with care, blot from the centre of the spill to minimise spreading.

2. Lift off solids, using a spoon and a blunt knife.

3. Stop and think! Identify the stain and its stain group — water-based, grease-based, and so on.

Read the care label, if there is one, so that you know what this fabric can happily withstand.

4. Unlock the stain by turning it into a liquid.

To do this, you use a solvent. Water, the simplest solvent, works more often than you might think. But don't guess on this; you also need to get the temperature right, because getting it wrong (as in too hot) can make the stain permanent.

5. Work from the inside out if you can.

It's far simpler to push the liquid back out the way it came, and doing so stops the stain from going right through the fabric on its journey out. (Clearly you can't do this with fitted carpets.)

6. Be ready to repeat everything, perhaps several times.

Treating older stains

If you can soften or totally wet your old, but previously untreated stain, you can relax because it won't seem old to the stain solvent.

Liquid glycerine can successfully soften most food-based stains. Apply it neat or, on delicates, mix it with an equal part of water, then leave it an hour to soften. Rinse off, and begin stain treating.

The hardest stains to shift are those that have been set by heat. A stain that has been through the drier is unlikely to come out. Of course, there are exceptions as well as new ways to look at an old problem. For example, if a hot dryer has set a bloodstain, you may want to consider bleaching it away. At this stage, it's also worth buying a proprietary stain remover especially for your stain type, though this is an expensive way of doing things.

Today, bio-detergents are so good that they get at stains like chocolate, wine, coffee, ice cream, and grease that needed a specialist remover 20 years ago. To give the detergent its best shot, remember not to overload the machine and choose the hottest programme safe for your item.

If you've already had a good go at removing a stain, it takes persistence to keep coming back to it.

Fighting impossible stains

Every now and again, you come across a stain that you just can't shift even though you've tried everything you can think of and everything. When you reach that point, try these tips:

• Seek expert advice: Take the item along to a dry cleaner, even if it is washable. They may have met with a similar problem and found a unique or unconventional approach that worked.

• Take more risk: If you cannot bear to use the item as it is, it's not such a big deal to risk destroying it altogether by using too harsh a stain treatment. So decide to ignore the care label and wash at a hotter temperature than is recommended. Or wash a nonwashable. Remember you're doing this only as a last resort and that you could ruin the item completely.

• Cut the stain out: On carpet, hold small scissors as horizontal as you can to cut away damaged pile. On laminate or wood floor, refit a new panel.

• Mask the damage: Choose from the following options or try your own:

• Add a floor rug.

• Only wear the shirt under sweaters.

• Adjust curtain pleats at the top to hide a stain within a fold of fabric.

• Turn up shirt cuffs and skirt and trouser hems if possible.

• Add trimmings, badges, or bows to cushions, children's clothes, or tableware.

• Bleach out the stain: On whites, this is generally a good idea. But it's a last resort for color fabrics, as you'll remove color throughout.

• Dye the fabric: Including towels, bedding and shoes. Go dark to cover over the stain as well.

• Paint over hard surfaces: With specialist paint, you can cover plastics, enamel, ceramic, and metal as well as wood. Doing so also paints out your stain problem.

If all else fails, you can learn to live with the stain. Like that old saying — don't throw the baby out with the bath water — there's no sense in throwing out the bathroom fixtures for the sake of one hair-dye stain on the sink.