Ught Oh, I Spilled

Photo courtesy of Stanley Fellerman/Corbis

I don't know how but I always seem to ruin my shirts with food stains. Maybe it's because I spend most of my time cooking and eating, or maybe I'm just a klutz. Either way, I ruin a lot of clothes and it's quite sad.

I'm trying to be better about catching stains before throwing clothes in the laundry where it sets in for life. I have been loving Wine Away to get berry stains out of my shirts (also great for wine stains obviously). Another great secret is using liquid dish washing soap for any grease or tomato-based stains in clothing. It's the only thing I've found that works. I recently got fry grease ALL over a new silk tank top and wanted to cry. I resisted the urge to fiddle and took it straight to the dry cleaner the next day. He said it was better that I didn't touch it because generally when people try to get stains out themselves, they end up making it more permanent. My mom taught me that aerosol hairspray is good for getting ink out of clothing and Woolite is your best bet to get blood out (good to know now that I'm a mom and we've already had a few bloody spills).

So those are my tips. Here's a great stain removal cheat sheet from Martha Stewart that you can print and leave in your laundry room for those questionable stains. I always welcome other ideas so please post any tricks you have up your sleeve!