Tips··4 min read
Stains: what actually works, and what makes it worse
Most stains are recoverable if you do nothing clever in the first ten minutes. A short guide to not setting the mark permanently.
The single most common reason a stain becomes permanent is not the stain. It is what happened to it before it reached us.
The three things that set a stain for good
- Heat — a hot wash or a tumble dry cooks protein stains into the fibre permanently
- Rubbing — scrubbing spreads the stain outward and damages the weave
- Time in a sealed bag — damp fabric left in a bin bag for days will mildew
If you take nothing else from this: do not put a stained garment in the dryer to see whether the stain survived the wash. That is the step that makes it permanent.
What to do instead
Blot, do not rub. Cold water, not hot. Then leave it alone and get it to us, ideally with the stained item on top of the bag and a note about what caused it — coffee, oil and blood all need completely different treatment, and knowing which one it is doubles our chances.
What we do on our side
Our stain treatment add-on means a technician spot-treats marks by hand during sorting, before anything goes near a machine. It is the cheapest insurance on the price list, and on a bag with kids' clothes in it, it pays for itself.
Want us to just deal with it?
Leave the bag at your door and we will take it from here.
