It happens to the best of us.
Enjoying a nice evening on your couch or at a dinner with friends and family – and oops! you spill some of your red wine. Don’t panic wondering how you’d ever get past this stubborn red wine stain.
This is your definitive guide to all methods of making red wine stain-disappear. Plus, it’s a myth buster so you know what works, as well as what doesn’t.
Up ahead:
- How to deal with red wine spots and stains on clothes?
- Should you use hot or cold water for red wine marks?
- Messed up your pristine carpet? Here’s how to get rid of red wine spots from white carpets
- DIY tips and tricks you didn’t know about
- Old stains? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered
- Quickest at-home red wine stain remover recipes
So, read on.
1. Getting Red Wine Stains Out Of Clothes
This could be a tricky situation,
That’s because you know you want to scrub away at the stain with all of your strength. But, you cannot damage the fabric.
What should you do?
Solution 1: Detergent to the rescue
Laundry detergent plus vinegar
- Cover the entire stain with concentrated white vinegar till it is flooded.
- Quickly, add a spoonful of liquid laundry detergent on the area, and rub.
- Wash it off with hot water, or chuck it in the laundry on a hot-water cycle.
Poof – your clothes are good as new!
Dishwashing detergent plus hydrogen peroxide
- Make a 50-50 solution of liquid dishwashing soap and hydrogen peroxide.
- Flood the stain with this solution and let it soak through.
- Wash it off with lukewarm water or in a regular laundry cycle.
This is best for synthetic fabrics and light clothes since the removal mixture will have some bleaching tendencies.
Solution 2: Removing stains from white clothes
Do you have a nasty red wine spill on your white shirt and you simply can’t get it out?
Well, you’ve got to try tougher methods.
We recommend soaking the stain in bleach (dilute it as per how dark the stain is) – and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. Then wash it in a hot-water cycle.
The stain would have completely disappeared!
2. Mythbuster: Should You Use Hot Or Cold Water For Those Nasty Red Wine Stains?
As surprising as it may be, the answer is BOTH. There is no single sure-shot method for removing a wine stain from any type of surface; so we did our research to find the most consistently successful method possible. And this is what we observed:
Step 1: Soak the stain in COLD water first for some time. Add an extra element like soda or detergent depending on the type of fabric.
Step 2: Wash the fabric in HOT water after it has soaked for enough time.
The combination of cold and hot water works to remove the spot in most cases, and is effective on most common fabrics. Make sure that you don’t reverse the steps, because use hot water directly on a cotton shirt – and you’ve got yourself an even more stubborn stain than before.
3. Dealing With Carpet Stains
We’ve all knocked over a glass of merlot or two and alas, made an ugly red stain on the carpet? Is it possible to save your favourite carpet without scrubbing it threadbare?
Yes – let’s be smart about it and deal with the damage methodically. First off, check the type of fabric of the carpet.
There’s a red wine stain on your wool rug
The simplest solution for this spill is to use heaps of salt. That’s right, good ol’ table salt to the rescue.
Soak away the excess liquid from the wool carpet with some kitchen paper, and then pour enough salt on it to completely cover the stain. This will work like a blotter, and absorb most of the wine. Let it sit for 20-30 minutes and then brush away the salt.
For a thorough clean, we suggest that you vacuum it or launder it in warm water.
There’s a red wine stain on your linen carpet
The best way to go about cleaning a thick linen fabric is to blot away the liquid with some tissues first. Then, prepare an equal-parts mixture of liquid detergent and white vinegar, and pour onto the stain. Let it completely soak through. Keep it aside for 20-30 minutes. Rinse with warm water – and there, you have saved your linen carpet from a nasty stain.
The baking soda trick for carpet red wine stains
For more stubborn stains on your carpet, this tried-and-tested method works wonders.
- Prepare a paste of three parts baking soda and one part water.
- Apply to paste liberally all over the stain.
- Let it dry till it thickens up and become hard to the touch.
- Vacuum away the dried paste and rinse gently with warm water.
This method is great for a variety of fabrics – right from upholstery, soft throws and even tough old sisal rugs.
4. Old Stain? How To Remove Red Wine Stains The Next Day?
You’ve just noticed a big unpleasant stain on the carpet or the couch from the rosé you had at the party last night. It’s dried up now, and threatening to deface your favourite rug or couch permanently.
Don’t despair, we’ve got you covered. Here are the best methods to remove old red wine stains from the carpet.
- (CRUCIAL): Soak the stained fabric in cold water for a long time. Leaving it water overnight is recommended.
- Rub in liquid detergent on the area and make a lather.
- Soak in cold water for 20-30 minutes.
- Repeat these steps 2-3 times till the stain lightens.
- Rinse off with warm water and let dry.
5. Handling Big Spills On Difficult Fabrics
It is important that you pick the right method to handle a red wine stain depending on its size and the nature of the fabric.
These are some tricks that are especially helpful for removing large spill-marks.
Using Club Soda
This is a highly underrated tip that can prove to be quite handy if you spill a full glass of red wine on the table cloth or carpet.
Wash the entire stain with a generous amount of club soda and let it dry overnight. The next day, scrub the area gently with liquid detergent (and a little bit of bleach for light fabrics), and you’re good to go!
Professional Products
When all else fails, you can turn to products specifically designed to tackle red wine stains to do the job.
Some of the most popular stain-remover products are Wine Away and Chateau Spill. You can use these if you have a really big stain or multiple stains and need to clean up quickly.
Some other products that you can consider are Bac-Out Stain, Tide Stick and Spot Shot.
Most of these have bleaching properties, so make sure that you read the specifications carefully before using them on dark fabrics.
6. Got Red Wine On Some Tough Fabrics?
Getting stains out from tough, hard fabrics is much harder compared to light synthetics clothes because the heavy fabric absorbs the stain more quickly and strongly. If you spilled some of your drink on a towel, a leather couch, or even your uggs – here’s how you can remove that red wine mark completely.
Hydrogen Peroxide To The Rescue
This home recipe is great for treating stains on heavy fabrics.
- Prepare a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and liquid dishwashing soap. Make the solution more concentrated for light fabrics and slightly dilute for dark colored fabrics (since hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent.)
- Apply the mixture onto the stain.
- Let it sit for half an hour and keep reapplying till the stain lightens and eventually disappears.
- Rinse off with warm water.
Hot Water Treatment
This method is recommended only in the case of extremely stubborn stains or a really heavy-duty fabric like hemp or jute.
- Isolate the stain from the fabric by stretching it around a bowl or glass. Secure it tightly so that the cloth is taut over the rim of the bowl.
- Dab away as much of the wine as you can with some kitchen paper.
- Run a steady stream of boiling hot water over the stretched cloth. Make sure that you don’t flood it completely – simply let the water run through the fabric and into the bowl.
- Repeat the process a few times till the stain lightens considerably.
- Scrub off gently with detergent and warm water.
There you have it – you are now armed with all the solutions to handle an accidental red wine spillage. No matter what fabric and how big the stain is, these methods should serve you well to get even the most stubborn stains out with ease.