How do I get blood stains out of clothes/sheets?

December 4, 2023 7:00 PM

I have tried several major stain removers including most recently Shout. The blood stains look literally 100% the same when they come out of the wash and I think it should be illegal for them to list "blood" on the labels as one of the types of stains their products can remove.

I have had blood stains over the years on multiple types of fabrics and have tried multiple products. None work *at all*.

I'm aware of the advice to immediately soak in cold water and rub with salt. This reduces but does not eliminate the staining, and isn't always possible to do right away. Plus, I'm not going to continue using something that has a noticeable blood stain, even if faded, because yuck.

As a person going through menopause with a wildly irregular period and not having the cues I used to to warn me, I am really desperate at this time to be able to clean my laundry properly. Halp???

posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds to Home & Garden (35 answers total)

Best answer: Hydrogen peroxide always works well for me, but I don't know how it performs after the stain has baked in.
posted by phunniemee at 7:04 PM on December 4, 2023 [12 favorites]

Best answer: Hydrogen peroxide, for sure, even on set stains. BUT do a spot test first since it can have a bleaching effect on some fabrics.
posted by charmedimsure at 7:05 PM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Oxyclean is basically hydrogen peroxide packaged as a laundry product. That should work too.
posted by LizardBreath at 7:06 PM on December 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: And it keeps working — that is, if you try it and get a faded but still visible stain, repeated treatments with peroxide/Oxyclean will continue to fade it, hopefully to invisibility.
posted by LizardBreath at 7:07 PM on December 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Welp, kinda gross, but for the small blood stains I get from scratching mosquito bites, saliva works. I check clothes when I take them off, and apply as needed. Then I often also use hydrogen peroxide. Once blood is set, esp. on sheets, I end up replacing them, but I usually save them before it's hopeless. saliva has enzymes that break down proteins, so it's effective on blood.
posted by theora55 at 7:11 PM on December 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Carbona Stain Devils #4.

Unfortunately, if you have already washed and dried the fabric, it’s likely to have set.
posted by slkinsey at 7:13 PM on December 4, 2023 [7 favorites]

Best answer: Most importantly, if you wash something and the stain hasn't been removed to your satisfaction, don't put it in the dryer. Once it's been cooked it'll be much more difficult to impossible to improve upon.
posted by kate4914 at 7:14 PM on December 4, 2023 [18 favorites]

Best answer: My mom's go-to has always been pre-soaking in water with Biz powder. Biz has enzyme-based cleaners that are supposed to help break down organic stains like blood. However I do see some posts around the internet wondering if they've changed their formula, and I haven't tested recently to see if it still works well.
posted by sigmagalator at 7:15 PM on December 4, 2023

Best answer: I agree that these stains have probably set.

For blood, get it soaking in COLD water as soon as you can after staining, and wash it cold. The temperature is more important than the kind of soap you use.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:27 PM on December 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

Yes, saliva and/or hydrogen peroxide. Let it soak in and break down the blood. Rinse with COLD water. Repeat as needed. No hot water, no hot wash or dryer, until the stain is sufficiently gone.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:43 PM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Hydrogen peroxide can get bloodstains out of sheets after they have set, even after several wash/dry cycles on hot and many months. Buy the highest percentage strength you can find.

The first caveat is that it may take multiple applications -- as in, soaking that portion with hydrogen peroxide and leaving it overnight, for 5+ nights in a row (and applying a new soak of hydrogen peroxide every night). It works, though slowly! Every day you should notice the stain has faded a little.

The second caveat is that it may fade some colours. Most of my sheets are white, or white with some mild patterning, and so far it has been fine.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 7:46 PM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Maybe I'm an outlier, but I've never had any luck with hydrogen peroxide, especially on dried blood and/or washed-and-dried blood. It does seem to work better on fresh/wet blood, but at that stage, cold water will have almost the safe effect.

What I can say about hydrogen peroxide, however, is that I wouldn't leave anything soaking in it and expect for the item to come out undamaged. I say this having seen it each through cotton towels before, to the point where they had holes in them.
posted by sardonyx at 7:58 PM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: In the future for new blood stains, it’s okay to let things dry and sit in a heap until you can get to them, as long you aren’t heating them up. You can usually get dried but not set blood out with a lot of manual scrubbing, simple soap, and cold water. Oxyclean and its ilk are helpful but in my experience less effective than a whole lot of scrubbing. Best to do both. I usually drench a dried blood spot in cold water, then squeeze it out, then rub on some plain soap like Dr bronners or regular bar soap. Then I hold the fabric in both hands, one on each side of the blood spot, and bring them together, scrubbing the fabric against itself between my hands. A scrubbing laundry brush can also help with this, and an old fashioned washboard, but both of those are often very abrasive and can be more damaging than just the fabric against itself. I repeat the soaping and scrubbing a few times and then depending on a variety of factors I will toss it in the laundry with oxyclean or do a soak with it or just wash normally on cold and inspect it before putting it in the dryer.

You may want to invest in some of those newfangled period panties that a bunch of companies are making these days. I haven’t yet made the financial commitment but they do anecdotally have a lot of coverage. There are also soft cotton liners that snap around the gusset of your underwear that you could wear regularly so as to catch any surprises without creating more waste or disrupting your usual underwear preferences.

For set in blood stains that have been heated, I find that scrubbing can help to soften the edges of the stains. I’ve also tried dabbing a little bleach solution on the stains of a mattress pad, which is white anyway, and that sort of helped but not entirely, and I didn’t want to bleach the whole thing to prevent degradation of the elastic and other construction. For upholstered furniture you should be able to eventually work out the blood with enough upholstery cleaner and preferably one of those scrubbing wet vac things, but not if you’ve tried a steam cleaner first, which will just set the stain forever.
posted by Mizu at 7:59 PM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: In addition to the cold water and hydrogen peroxide - Fels-naptha. Ir is a bar soap designed for pretreatment of stains and it's what Mom told me to use back when I was 13 (in the 1980s).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:00 PM on December 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: The enzyme cleaner that I use for my dog’s pee accidents (Nature’s Miracle) has worked wonders on blood stains.
posted by xueexueg at 8:08 PM on December 4, 2023 [7 favorites]

Best answer: Since hemoglobin is a protein, it occurred to me to wonder whether anybody was trying proteases (aka meat tenderizers) to get blood out of fabric, and I found this:

Make a paste with unseasoned meat tenderizer and cold water, and soak the stain with this paste for 30 minutes. Rinse and launder in cold water. This technique works efficiently even on old, dried blood stains.

Wool is also mainly protein, so I wouldn’t try this with wool.
posted by jamjam at 8:26 PM on December 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Shout advanced gel (the most concentrated one) will get out blood, including period blood, extremely well. You work it in with the included soft-bristled brush and let it sit overnight before washing on cold. The other Shout products are much less effective.

I’m assuming you are using a brand-name detergent.
posted by wnissen at 8:46 PM on December 4, 2023

Best answer: I’ve always kept a bar of yellow Sunlight soap on hand for all my blood stain situations. I’ve found it gets pretty much any kind of stain out.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:48 PM on December 4, 2023

Best answer: Hogwash soap has a bit of cornmeal for a little grit that lifts stains. I wouldn't use it on fragile fabrics, but it's been fine on my regular clothes and sheets. I haven't tried it on set-in bloodstains, but it has worked for me on dried blood.
posted by EvaDestruction at 9:25 PM on December 4, 2023

Best answer: Rubbing soap and water into it and leaving it in tends to make it so the stain comes out when actually laundered.
posted by limeonaire at 10:02 PM on December 4, 2023

I've had luck in the past with Zout stain remover.
posted by Emmc325 at 11:08 PM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: ... my best advice is to do nothing at all to it until you can soak it in cold water. Even if that means it sits there until the blood dries, or even if you dump it in a bucket, add water, and let it sit for a week before you get around to it.

Then rinse. Swish it around. Maybe do it again. If necessary, rub at it with something, while in at least a little cold water. For me, that's usually fingers/dull fingernails or a washcloth or towel. Keep putting it back in cold water in between dealing with the tough ones. Ignoring it to let it soak til you feel like messing with is fine.

If you need to let it dry to check if the stain is gone, leave it sit out to dry - don't do anything to dry it, and keep it out of the sun. If the stain is still there, it's back in the water it goes.

But for heaven's sake, don't use hot water, don't put spray and wash on it, and don't put it in the dryer.

Granted, this is mostly jeans, cottons, and whatever other typical washer-friendly fabrics and items.

But the only real problem I've ever had was when someone either used Spray n Wash or put something in the dryer too soon. Almost always, dumping it as soon as possible into a dishpan or stock pot or bucket full of water solves it, and ignoring it for a day or three, solves it for me.

*** My previously favorite tactic of putting it in the washer by itself, on cold, and leaving the lid open so that it doesn't spin the water out - and leaving it there til I check it and maybe do it again - works fantastic. So long as no one else in the household decides I must have forgotten it and to "help" me by spinning it out and putting it in the dryer... this is why a dishpan, stock pot, or bucket work better for me. Random clothing sitting in cold water somewhere definitely looks like too much work to my other household members, so I can be pretty much certain that no one will touch it or put it in the dryer!
posted by stormyteal at 11:22 PM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone! There are many suggestions in this thread I've never even heard of. I'm glad to have additional things to try and hope to report back that something has worked...
posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds at 4:01 AM on December 5, 2023

Best answer: As a teen when I first started my periods, we were taught to use salt and it's always worked for me. Run the stain under cold water, put salt on, rub the grains into the cloth under the running water, using the graininess to help clean. Particularly pay attention to the edge of the stain - it's like you want to use the grains to 'break' the edge of the stain, and that lets the rest of it flow away somehow. Then having got rid of the worst of it by doing that, the remainder comes out with a regular machine wash.

Admittedly, easier with smallish stains, might not work so well for larger ones on sheets.
posted by penguin pie at 4:11 AM on December 5, 2023

Best answer: Note that a bottle of hydrogen peroxide expires (becomes ineffective) six months after the bottle is opened so buy the smallest bottle possible.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:53 AM on December 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I use Dr. Bronner's peppermint castile soap. Just put a little bit on the stain, add a bit of cold water and whisk briskly between your hands. Repeat as necessary.
posted by nanook at 5:23 AM on December 5, 2023

Best answer: I haven’t tried it for this purpose yet (though there are some old mattress stains I could and should use for science), but the horribly named product My Pet Peed was a genuine miracle for set-in pet urine stains and claims to work for any organic substance including blood. I do not understand how it works (magic?).
posted by babelfish at 6:51 AM on December 5, 2023

Best answer: My go-to for bloodstains is always Fels-Naptha bar soap. It does work, even on dried blood stains, but can involve actually rubbing the soap bar into the stain, wetted with cold water first! You can also brush it on by rubbing a wet toothbrush on the bar of soap and then scrubbing the stain(s) that have been prewetted with cold water. Then launder in cold water with whatever detergent you usually use. Another use for Fels-Naptha is washing skin or clothing that has been exposed to poison oak or ivy. It really works!
posted by Lynsey at 8:34 AM on December 5, 2023

Ammonia, diluted in water. Obviously, do not mix ammonia and bleach, and use with good ventilation, gloves, etc.
posted by dizziest at 11:05 AM on December 5, 2023

IMHO it's worth keeping Tide detergent around... at least for the items with potentially tricky stains.

Have you tried bluing? It's an optical brightener...not a stain remover...but its use really does help white fabric look less dingy.
posted by oceano at 11:36 AM on December 5, 2023

A counterargument about bluing - it would not help with removing blood stains, which is the primary problem.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:52 PM on December 5, 2023

To clarify... bluing should be used after the other stain removal efforts have been exhausted. It's not magic, but its use can improve the appearance of white fabric with a 'residual stain.'
posted by oceano at 9:01 PM on December 5, 2023

Huh. No one’s mentioned the best stain remover around: Folex. I have seen it pull coffee stains out of silk before, and used it to get an older blood stain off my white cotton bathmat from when I’d cut myself shaving once. Unlike a lot of stain removers, it's non- magnetic, so the stain won’t come back. Soak things in cold water, blot dry a little, and then spray some Folex on it. Agitate with your fingers ( to help break up the edges of the stain as mentioned above) and then blot the area with a clean cloth or paper towels.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:16 AM on December 6, 2023

Once when giving blood at a school blood drive, it failed to clot fast enough and I got blood on my shirt. A nurse broke open a bag of saline solution, telling me it was a nurses’ secret for bloodstains, and sat there scrubbing it for a good while (ten minutes? Don’t remember). She got the stain 99% out—I could tell where it once was, but nobody else could have. I expect if I tried more scrubbing and washing at home it would have completely come out, but I tossed it in the dryer and accidentally set it because I didn’t realize that would happen.

So: salt water and scrubbing, which fits with a great deal of advice in this thread.
posted by telophase at 9:11 AM on December 6, 2023

My own trick is putting dishsoap on the stain ASAP, scrub a bit if you have time, then toss into the laundry basket to wash on cold when you have time. This works even better when it sits a few days and is gentle for almost all fabrics. (I wouldn’t use it on like handpainted silk, but it works well for washable silk.)

I suspect you can combine this safely with salt / saline solution.
posted by ec2y at 10:43 PM on December 6, 2023 [1 favorite]