I am a very clumsy person. Ask any of my friends. They know. When I wave my hand around at the dinner table I knock over a drink. When I’m cutting a piece of meat on the plate a whole chunk flies off the plate onto my lap. So stains on my shirt are a common thing to me.
If only stains were this pretty.
Splattering Sauce
I try not to move too much when I’m eating dinner. I’m always afraid I’ll knock something over. But despite how hard I try, I end up getting my shirt dirty. Like when I “slurp” my pasta the sauce splatters and gets on my chest area. Even sometimes after a meal I’ll notice a stain from no where. I see it after lunch and I think “where did that come from???”
Hello, I’m a Stain, look at me!
Anyways, you get the idea from my problem. And the worse thing about it is that I hate having my shirt dirty. It’s like that Tide stain pen commercial where the stain is yelling out and people staring at it when you’re talking to them.
But I always notice that afterwards most 90% of the stains I get, I can wash out. Here are a few things that I do.
Ice it.
Right when I notice the stain, I first try to blot it out first. Don’t rub or scrub the stain with your napkin. Rather, blot it to get the chunks out first. I don’t rub because I don’t want to make it bigger than it needs to. Then I take some ice from my water (I order ice water just in case sometimes because of this very reason but then again I don’t anymore because of environmental reasons [link]) and put it over the stain. I know that icing the stain has something to do with keeping the oils from bonding to the shirt or at least making it less worse.
Spray it right when you get home.
I also make I have a bottle of the laundry stain spray handy. My fiance makes sure I do. Everytime my clothes get stained and I’ve iced it, I just spray it with a bottle of the stain handler right when I get home. I spray it, throw it in the hamper and then let it juice out a bit.
Do the laundry.
I try not to let it sit for too long. So on my weekly laundry I make sure I wash the stained clothes first. So with the icing, spraying and normal washing, most of my stained clothes usually get cleaned this way.
Go baby on myself.
Sometimes this just doesn’t work does it? As a last resort and for my really nice clothes that I would never want stained, I do a bit more. I cary a Tide to Go Pen and wear a bib or a paper towel under my chin. So much for trying to look classy when I look like baby with a bib!
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I have 4 messy boys ranging from 6-12 years old and they tend to get food stains on their shirts during meal times. I purchase a few cases every year of large paper dental bibs and clip them around their necks at meal times. Dental bibs are thick and absorbant and the spills and splashes land on the paper instead of their shirts. We bring bib clips with us when we go to restaurants and they fit right in your pocket. When your food arrives just attach a paper napkin or bring a dental bib with you and use the clips to attach it around your neck and you will be well protected. You will also save big on dry cleaning.
Travis