I have a one year old. It goes without saying that I need a good stain remover.
This recipe will probably have my super-crunchy hippie friends hanging their heads in shame, because, yes, it contains blue Dawn dish soap
I don’t have time to mix up a multi-step process of spraying vinegar and water, sprinkling baking soda and or washing soda and then scrubbing. Right now, I’m the spray-and-walk-away gal. the best you’re getting from me right now is a spray and a little rub with an old toothbrush. I know what you’re thinking…
But, nope. It’s just laundry. And I’m over it.
The internet and even popular women’s magazines are littered with creative, homemade, DIY stain solutions, and they all have their merits and their downfalls. For me, it want quick, easy, effective and cheap, and if I have to use original blue Dawn sometimes to keep my sanity, well; I’m gonna do it.
Two Ingredient Stain Solution:
- One part original (blue) Dawn dish soap
- Two parts hydrogen peroxide
That’s it. I’m not kidding. I mixed mine up in a small spray bottle and started attacking a pile of clothes that I had otherwise left for dead. I had a lot of success and was feeling brave so I spot tested an inconspicuous area of carpet for colorfastness. I didn’t see any, so I then attacked a terrible purple stain in my carpet and it literally disappeared before my very eyes. Hence the “amazing” part of the title of this post 🙂
Check out my “before and afters:”
Here is the nasty purple stain. I sprayed on the “amazing” stain spray and it literally disappeared before my eyes in seconds. It was weird…
This was one of those sweet grease stains that wasn’t there before you washed your clothes, and them “amazingly” appeared once out of the dryer. Sheesh. Just like my carpet, I spot tested for colorfastness before use.
I sprayed on the stain spray and let it sit for a few hours before laundering. The results were magnificent.
This third one was cod liver oil on Sweet baby’s onesie. One of my favorite onesies infact. This darn thing sat atop her dresser for the past 6 months; due to my reluctance in trying to battle it clean. As you can see from the photo, I may have agitated the stained area a bit too much, but this was a tough, old, set in stain that needed to be put through it’s paces. I sprayed and did some quick scrubbing, and then rinsed in cold water. Then I sprayed again and l left it to soak for a few hours before laundering. The results were brilliant. I waited so long that this onesie doesn’t fit now– unless I have one of these
I sort of went bonkers seeking out all of my stained, and mostly beloved articles of clothing. I revived every one that I could. I’m curious to see what other types of stains this stuff can tackle, but so far I have only tried cloth and carpet. For the price that it costs to make; pennies on the dollar, you can’t go wrong. I will spray it on everything
Have you made a DIY stain-remover? Do share your recipe and results with us!
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Shared With: Frugal days, Sustainable ways, Wildcrafting Wednesday, LHITS DIY Linky, From the Farm
I’m going to try this as soon as possible! One of my regrets with continuing to wear my pre-pregancy tops during pregnancy with a bella band to save money on maternity clothes has been that I’ve stained every single one as I am constantly re-navigating where my body ends. Looking forward to reviving them!
good morning im always looking for nonchemical ways to help my family. ilove it .peroxide is good in so many ways. if you mix it with vinegar and water it also help to get rid of pet odor in carpet and furniture. ilived in a house that had a room that the people before us had let their 2dogs use one room as their kennnel it smelled horrible.I put vinegar and peroxide 2 equal parts and hot water in my steam cleaner and cleaned the carpet and this mixture kills the enzymes that cause that horrible smell…please post more i will definately use this one
I am so sad that I didn’t know this earlier because I have thrown away SO MANY ITEMS OF CLOTHING thinking that there was no effective way to remove small grease stains. THANK YOU!!!! You’ve saved at least half of my future wardrobe because I’m a slob 😛
This looks great! Gonna try it soon! I wash my massage sheets with Dawn because it’s so awesome at getting out oil!
I have been making this recipe for a year now. Love it! Works great.
Hi! Thanks for sharing! I have the perfect stain to try this out on. I can’t wait! I love adding to my natural cleaners and this one sounds so easy!
Rubbing alcohol works great on carpet stains too. I don’t have pics but my dog had chewed up an eye liner pencil and it left a black stain on my silver carpet. Peroxide didn’t faze it. I used rubbing alcohol after reading it somewhere and the stain is completely gone 🙂
Moving to a new home. Got a few stains on carpet in old house. I will try this. Thanks!
Thank you for the post. I’ve been trying to improve as a frugal mum recently – I’m not entirely sure how good I’ll be but every little helps! The last few weeks I’ve been trying to improve on the upkeep of our carpets and rugs. In the past I’ve used a company to come in and clean them – I haven’t ever had any complaints, I used carpet cleaning birmingham and anyone not wanting to do it for themselves I’ve no problem recommending them. But I’ve been reading lots of blogs like this recently and I think I can have a good bash at it now the kids are all at school through the day! Thanks again, wish me luck!
This works with Palmolive dish soap, too. I don’t use Dawn because it’s made by Procter and Gamble. They needlessly torture animals in their labs.
Jerri,
Thank you so much for providing this info! As soon as I’m ready to get new dish soap, (which will be a long time because I don’t use it on my dishes), I’m going to give Palmolive a try. If it works well, iId be willing to edit the recipe. Are you certain that Palmolive doesn’t do the uneccessary torturing? Where are you geting your info?
do you blot it after or what let it dry ?
Judy, I think I absorbed it with a microfiber cloth. Sorry, it was a while ago 😉 I mostly use this as a laundry spray, but DIY Home World has shared it as a carpet spray. I am grateful for the share, but I am most familiar with the laundry applicaions of this. Thankfully, I have only had to use it on my carpet once! It worked beautifully though. I’m sure there will be many more spots to clean in the near future as the baby becomes more and more mobile 😉
Hi guys, brilliant post thank you! I have been doing a ton of chemical free clening the last few weeks and shall continue towards Christmas. We have metres and metres of carpet and we have moved to Newcastle – can anyone please suggest a carpet cleaner?! But I will definitely take the tips away from this post for the bits we can manage on our own. Thanks again 😀 Yvonne xox
I just tried a similar solution on old, stained baby clothes and they all came out spot-free! It was 1 part hydrogen peroxide, 1 part blue Dawn, and 2 parts baking soda. I mixed it up in a bowl and scrubbed it on the stains, let sit awhile, then washed. So I started using it on all out stained clothes, even ring-around-the-collar. Everything came out clean.
We live in the UK and cannot purchase Dawn. Will any washing up liquid do the same thing?
I’m not sure, Angie. I think Dawn is sort of magical in this. Since it’s not too spendy of ingredients, let us know if you tried an alternative and how it works! Perhaps you can order Dawn on Amazon?