Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with stains and resolved

Out, damned spot!

fantine — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:55:12 -0800

How can I clean my besmirched kindle? Stain on white Kindle case. Do not want!

Ok, I just got a kindle and it's awesome. However, i've gotten it a little dirty and I prefer it clean.

I was trying to clear up a little mark with the spit-and-fabric technique when unfortunately, some reddish/pink dye from my skirt (cheaply made, alas) got onto the white border. I tried scrubbing with windex, a damp paper towel, and a washcloth with soap Toni avail. There remains a faint (but real) light pink stain on the upper left corner.

How can I clean this properly? I'm guessing a thin coat of white out maybe be folly, but would that work? Any and all guidance apppreciated.

How to protect a new sofa from stains?

WizKid — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:38:35 -0800

Just bought a new very light beige color sofa and would like to protect it from spills and stains. Any advice?
I've read good reviews about "scotchguard". Any tips on that?

Out, Out, Damn Spot

EmpressCallipygos — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:25:25 -0800

How do you remove a stain....if you don't know what the stain is? I have a white rayon tunic shirt which long ago developed some mysterious brown stains on the front. It almost looks like I dribbled tea down the front. Except - I didn't. I just pulled it out of the closet one day and noticed all these drips of an unknown stain on them.

All I can think is: I used to live in an apartment where the "closet" was open space under a platform loft bed, leaving all my hanging clothes open to random weird floating gak in the air from inside or outside. So this stain could be ANYTHING.

I've tried stain spray, I've tried diluted bleach, I've tried Oxy-Clean; it's still rather stubborn. I even got desperate and tea-dyed the whole shirt to see if the rest of it would take on the same hue as the stain, but...that just made the stain a little darker too, so you can still see it. Researching all the "stain removal tips" web sites out there require you to know what the stain is first, but....I don't know.

Help?

How do I get dirt stains out?

otherwordlyglow — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:22:55 -0800

How do I remove dirt stains on pants? My daughter came home from daycare with the knees of her pants totally saturated with a mixture of sand and dirt. She's a crawler and I expect this to happen a lot but have no experience with dirt stains. (I don't do a lot of stuff that leads to dirt stains on me). For the most part it doesn't matter too much: the pants were cheap and I'm sure she'll grow out of them in another month but what's the best way to treat these kinds of stains? I'm sure there will be plenty more.

The complicating factor is that they've already been washed and dried and still have stains on the knees. Is there any hope of getting them totally clean? Generally, I know to pre-treat stains but I neglected to do that this time. So the question really is two-fold: What are best practices for dirt stains and then what do I do in this case where it's already been laundered but the stain remains? I'm in the U.S., so product recommendations will be most helpful if they're available here.

Bonus side question: Does anyone remember a solvent/stain removal product that used to be available maybe up to the 70s and 80s? It was alcohol based and came in a narrow, tall-ish glass jar with a felt tip that you dabbed on to stains? I can't find it anymore which leads me to believe it was toxic and so they've taken it off the market but it worked like a charm on a lot of things.

Hard water stains

hardbop — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:27:57 -0800

How do you clean hard water rust stains from plastic and rubber? The fridge front door where you get water and ice has nasty brown stains on the rubber levers and plastic drip tray.

How to remove dye stains from hardwood?

Felicity Rilke — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:38:45 -0800

Ho do I remove confetti and streamer stains from hardwood floors? We held an election party last night complete with streamers and that metallic confetti which shoots out of poppers. Some of the streamers and confetti sat in pools of alcohol all night and today I am faced with candy-coloured marks all over my light-coloured hardwood. What's the best way to get rid of them (or, at the very least, fade them so they're less noticeable). I don't want to ruin the floors with my experimentation.

Getting stains out of a white formica kitchen counter

CunningLinguist — Thu, 12 May 2005 05:30:51 -0800

Have I hopelessly stained my white formica kitchen counter? After some recent debauchery, there were some stains on my counter the morning after. Not sure what: could be red wine, could be coffee, could be raspberry juice. I wasn't worried in the least because a little Soft Scrub with bleach always took care of such problems instantly in the past. But not this time. When it didn't, I thought, "hmm, well, maybe more bleach" so I poured a flood of straight bleach on the stains, covered them with a damp paper towel and went away. When I got back, to my horror, the stains have now become much more prominent and have turned a hideous, bright Halloween-y orange. No amount of scrubbing even begins to minimize them. What the hell did I do? And is there any way to fix this?