Consumer Reports Ranks The Best Stain Treatments

Consumer Reports Rates the Best Stain Remover

Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
By Consumer Reports
www.consumerreports.com

Consumer Reports: The dirt on stain treatments

Stained clothing can be a bummer, but are there products that can remove even the nastiest grime? Consumer Reports recently tested stain treatments applied before laundering, and found a couple that worked well on a variety of stains. Each stain treatment was evaluated for its effectiveness on coffee, blood, wine, sebum, motor oil and grass.

Resolve Laundry (10 cents per ounce) was the top-scoring treatment and worked well on all the stains. Shout Advanced Action (21 cents per ounce) was almost as good and can be applied up to a week before laundering. It worked well on all stains but wine.

For its tests, CR’s technicians took swatches of stained polyester/cotton fabric, applied the same amount of each stain cleaner, let the swatches sit for five minutes, and then washed them in a mediocre detergent.

For comparison, they also washed the stained swatches in a highly rated detergent, using no pre-treatment. The lowest-scoring treatment was also a Resolve product: Resolve Foaming Aerosol Laundry (15 cents per ounce). It only worked well on removing motor oil.

Most laundry pretreatments help somewhat: The top products, including old stain remedy Fels-Naptha, which was made into a paste using one part Fels to four parts water, worked better than detergent alone. Scrubbing will probably improve stain removal, but also might damage fabrics.

CR recommends consumers use caution when considering products labeled “natural,” because that word has no standard meaning in cleaning products.

Nature’s Source Natural (20 cents per ounce) and Green Works Natural (25 cents per ounce) did a good job on only a couple of the stains.

Ecover (66 cents per ounce), the priciest choice, claims “plant-based ingredients.”

Consumer Union Inc.

Read the full article here on the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Before you treat any stain make sure check the cleaning care label on your garment to make sure it does not need to be dry cleaned. You need to test spot the cleaner on a non visible place on the article of clothing to make sure it does not alter the color. If you are not sure whether to clean the article of clothing yourself, contact Mark Pressed4Time.

image credit: Lara604 on flickr