Are you struggling to remove grass stains from clothes?
I feel your pain. Of all the cruel tricks the laundry monster plays on us, grass stains can feel like one of the worse, as they always seem to be pay back for a lovely day out in the sun.
The kids have have a ball sliding around the park or sports field and come in with jeans or sports kit covered in grass stains. We lay out on the grass at a picnic and our lovely summer light and white clothes end up adorned with the greenest of bright green grass stains. Grrr!!!
And then we shove the grass stained clothes in the wash with a bundle of other laundry and the washing machine not only totally fails to remove the grass stains but leaves them set in. Boo hoo!!
So what’s the answer? How can we remove grass stains from our clothes easily? Commercial stain removers applied pre-wash are the obvious answer aren’t they? Hmmmm …. actually, no they’re not.
You see the thing is, the chemicals in most stain removers are associated with a bunch of family health problems. And we can actually make quick non-toxic stain removers and remove grass stains from clothes and jeans and sports kit with just a few, much safer household ingredients.
Why Choose Non Toxic Stain Removers?
Commercial stain removers promise quick results and convenience but too often don’t deliver on these but do deliver on nasty chemicals.
Check out the ingredients on your stain removers and you’ll spot the likes of: ammonium hydroxide, sodium hypochlorite, 2-Butoxyethanol and sodium borate. And quick research on these raises big red flags. They’ve all been connected to asthma and respiratory problems and to allergies and skin irritation. Seriously, not nice.
So it makes sense to choose non toxic stain removers. Especially when there are cheap, DIY, natural stain remover alternatives out there that can actually remove grass stains effectively.
I’ve tried a bunch of natural grass stain removers over the years and these are the simple tricks that worked best for me. Do give them a go and let me know how you get on.
Grass Stain Removers
All you need to remove grass stains are:
- Laundry liquid
- Rubbing alcohol
Laundry Liquid To Remove Grass Stains
We’re constantly told we need super-powered biological laundry liquid to remove grass stains from clothes, sports kit and the kids jeans. But too many of these “super-power” laundry liquids include the same dodgy chemicals we’re trying to avoid in commercial stain removers!!
I use this gentle, allergy friendly laundry liquid to remove grass stains and it does the trick. (It’s also made less than 200 miles by a small locally owned company who are creating great skilled jobs in an area that need them.)
Rubbing Alcohol On Grass Stains
Rubbing alcohol is your other must have ingredient for removing grass stains. It’s a super useful natural cleaning ingredient you can use for all sorts of natural cleaning including:
- As a natural disinfectant
- In DIY hand sanitizer
- To remove ink stains
Rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol or an ethanol based alcohol. In the UK, the equivalent is surgical spirit, (not to be confused with white spirit for cleaning your paint brushes!!!)
It’s basically 70% alcohol so if you don’t have any in stock you could use very strong vodka on your grass stains instead.
OK, so now we’ve got our ingredients, we’re ready to remove our grass stains.
How To Remove Grass Stains
To remove the grass stains you need to :
- Brush off any loose mud or grass
- Rinse in lots of running cool water
- Apply laundry liquid and rub well for five minutes or so
- Rinse again in cool water. If you’ve been able to act quickly this will be enough to clear lots of grass stains. The problem when we shove grass stained clothes in the washing machine, is that the heat sets the stain in.
- If the cool water and laundry liquid hasn’t removed your grass stains apply rubbing alcohol to the stain and leave for 15 minutes.
- Then rinse with cool water
- If necessary repeat the cycle again applying laundry liquid and then rubbing alcohol.
This should get even the brightest green of green grass stains out of your clothes but is obviously most effective if you’re dealing with spot stains on kids jeans for example.
If you’re dealing with sports kit covered in grass stains then go for the cold soak. This is a really useful natural stain remover trick. Just:
- Rinse clothes in the bath in lots of cool running water
- Pour laundry liquid onto the clothes
- Fill the bath with just enough cool water to keep the clothes submerged
- Leave over night
- Rinse well in morning
- Apply rubbing alcohol to any stubborn grass spots
If you haven’t got the time or mental head space to cold soak your grass stained clothes in the bath and just want to get them in the washing machine then just make sure you do it on a cold wash with no spin, as the thing you want to avoid more than anything is the heat that will set the stain.
Rubbing alcohol will remove set in grass stains, although it can take a good couple of cycles through laundry liquid and rubbing alcohol to shift them. But in my experience, it does in the end shift even the brightest of bright green grass stains.
So there you go, simple tips to remove grass stains naturally from clothes and jeans and sports kits without any of the nasty chemicals you find in typical stain removers. I do hope they help. Please do share if they did.
And for more simple, non-toxic cleaning tips try these:
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