We are going to try and get rid of oil stains

When cooking in the kitchen, oil stains are inevitable sometimes - they may land on clothes or on your favorite towel. Now you are thinking, “How do I remove oil without consequences?”

It should be said that getting oil out of fabric is not easy, as oils are quick to get absorbed by fabrics, and even the most expensive detergent alone won’t be able to deal with them.

But some household items may come to the rescue in fighting oil on linen.

Let’s consider several options and try to find out which one is better in getting oil stains out.

But first, a few precautions

It must be remembered that linen is very sensitive to bleach and stain removers; therefore, to remove those complex stains out of your linen, you must be extremely careful with what you use.

First of all, it should be remembered that stains are easier to get removed if they are still fresh.

And you should always try any new stain removers or home-made mixtures (even if it should be suitable for linen fabric in all respects) on a small area of an item, on the inner seam or on the reverse side. Leave the mixture for 3-5 minutes and rinse it off. If the color of the fabric has changed, this mixture can’t be used.

How to clean oil stains: removal methods

We will try several methods in an attempt to remove oil from fabric. Acting as a victim of oil stains is our placemat from minimalist Lesna collection. Good luck!

Method 1 - Baking soda

Soda is a universal remedy for all occasions; in addition, it is an excellent adsorbent.

We’ll dust the oily area with soda (you can use potato starch instead). Leave for 30-40 minutes.

Then we’ll rub the stain with an old toothbrush. Lumps will start appearing - this is soda absorbing oil.

Shake off the remaining soda.

If you have a fairly large stain, and so we’ll repeat the procedure with a new layer of soda. You can also pour dishwashing liquid on top of it.

Rub the mixture into the stain and let it sit some time.

Method 2 - Mustard

You can use mustard powder: dilute the powder with water to make paste.

Put this paste on the stain and leave to dry. Before washing, remove the remaining paste.

Method 3 - Ammonia + Glycerin

Ammonia (ammonia solution) is a 10% water solution of ammonium hydroxide. It does not have alcohol-containing substances, but is famous for its sharp unpleasant odor.

Prepare the following mixture: to 200 ml of water, add 1 tablespoon of glycerin and 1 tablespoon of ammonia.

We’ll apply the mixture to the stain with a cotton swab and leave for at least 20 minutes.

Now let's see what we got.

Varvara Home placemat from Lesna collection. Three oil stains landed on the placemat. We will try to remove the upper spot by Method 1, the lower left - by Method 2 and the lower right - by Method 3.

It has been about 20 minutes. The oil spot on top continued to spread, and the mixture of ammonia and glycerin almost evaporated from the lower spot on the right. After 40 minutes from the application of all three mixtures, the top spot was rubbed with a toothbrush.

Indeed, soda was starting to clump.

We’ve shaken off soda and decided to repeat the step. But this time we’ve added liquid dish soap on top of soda and rubbed it into the stain. We’ve shaken off the dried mustard paste and sent the placemat to the washing machine.

When clean linen is wet, the stains are not visible. But the dryer linen got, the more evident the stains became.

As a result, it should be noted that soda coped the best with an oil stain (albeit not ideally) - the stain spread, but brightened up. Mustard left behind a yellowish spot. Well, and Method 3 didn't help at all.

We’ll search for more methods to find the best one and we’ll go over those stains again.

May you all have less difficult spots to deal with!