Vaseline is good for skin, but certainly not for your clothes. You shouldn’t allow it to stain your clothes in the first place, but if it does, your clothes aren’t ruined. All you need to do is follow a few steps, and the stain is gone. To make it easier, ensure you get the vaseline out as possible.
Can You Prevent Your Clothes From Getting Stained With Vaseline Or Other Items?
Not all stains are pretty easy to get out of clothes, either from vaseline or other liquids or oil-based ointment. As such, you should protect your clothes from getting stained except in unavoidable cases.
Be careful of what you handle
When wearing the clothes you use for essential functions like work, parties, business meetings, etc., you should be careful of what you handle.
For instance, you shouldn’t be applying vaseline or any other ointment on your body when you’re wearing a formal suit for an event. The chances of the cloth getting stained during this period are higher. If you want to apply anything to your body, do so before getting fully dressed.
Wear casual clothes when working in the home
It’s absurd to wear an exquisite dinner gown or fancy suit when doing some routine or ordinary home activities, like applying oil to a clogged machine or doing the laundry. Not only would you be uncomfortable, but you might also end up ruining the cloth with permanent stains, and that wouldn’t look so good on clothes you use to make a fashion statement.
You should sort your clothes into categories; formal wear shouldn’t be treated the same as informal ones. This way, if any of your clothes get stained, it’ll be the ones that aren’t so dear to you.
Use a stain guard
If you can’t avoid getting stained, use a stain guard to protect your clothes. However, stain guards aren’t meant for every cloth. Usually, they’re used to protect leather clothes from getting ruined by liquids, and shirts from different types of stains.
You can get a stain guard from a store or your dry cleaner. Ultimately, you’ve to be your own stain guard by avoiding things that can ruin your clothes.
Use an emergency stain remover
As much as you try to prevent your clothes from getting stained, don’t forget that it can be almost impossible to do so sometimes. A hug from a co-worker can leave some streaks of makeup on your shirt, a pat on the back from a playful young child can stain your suit with some grease.
However, these things don’t have to ruin your clothes. You can buy an emergency stain remover or make one from lemon juice and cream of tartar to apply immediately on stains.
Finally, if your clothes get stained, ensure you remove the stain as soon as you can.
4 Dos And Donts You Should Observe When Removing A Vaseline Stain From Your Clothes
While removing a vaseline stain from your cloth doesn’t require too much effort, you can make the process more difficult if you do some things. Here are some things you should never do to a vaseline stain on your cloth.
Rubbing/scrubbing the stain
One of the worst mistakes you can commit is to rub/scrub the vaseline stain. The more you rub or scrub the stain, the deeper it goes into the fabric and the more challenging it is to remove. For vaseline stains, the process of removal only becomes more stressful, and the affected area spreads.
However, for other stronger stains like dyes, the chances of the cloth getting ruined are higher; usually, dye stains can be difficult to get off clothes, and scrubbing it only makes it more visible. What you should rather do is blot it out with an item with a blunt edge e.g. a spoon.
Mixing different chemicals to remove the stain
While there are many options for getting vaseline out of your clothes, it’s safe to settle for one. You can remove vaseline stains by applying dishwashing liquids, detergents, or bleach chemicals( for colorful stains).
However, using it all together might ruin the fabric because of the different reactions from the chemicals you’ve mixed. You should remember that your clothes aren’t metals when treating stains. As such, don’t overdo the process.
Mixing with other color-transferable clothes
The fastest way to ruin your clothes is to mix color-transferable clothes with none color-transferable garments in the washer. You’d need to wash the vaseline stain out of your cloth after pre-treating it. If you don’t want it to become ruined, it’s either you wash it alone or with clothes whose dyes aren’t transferable. Ultimately, you should do the same for other clothes as well.
Leaving the vaseline-stained clothes
Except the cloth isn’t fit for wearing, you should not forsake the vaseline-stained cloth. Vaseline is oil-based and, therefore, doesn’t make a permanent stain on fabrics. With the proper care, you’ll get the vaseline out of the cloth in no time, and it’d be as if there was no stain. If you’re too busy to go through with the process, you can get someone to do it for you.
Wondering How To Get Vaseline Out Of Your Clothes? Here Is How
The steps are quite the same to get vaseline or any other oil-based ointment out of your clothes.
Remove the excess vaseline
The first step to getting vaseline out of your clothes is to remove the excess from the affected spot. Without removing the excess, you’d only spread the vaseline across your clothes with any other thing you do.
Use an item with a blunt edge to remove the excess, to prevent ruining the fabric. In addition, try as much as possible to stay within the affected area on the fabric when scraping off the extra vaseline. Alternatively, you can use a paper towel and a pressing iron too.
Place the paper towel on the stain and put the iron(which should be set to low heat) on it for a few minutes. The hot paper towel will blot out the excess, and you can repeat it as many times as possible till the stain is gone.
Wash the cloth
After blotting out the excess, wash the fabric. You can apply a dishwashing liquid to the spot and wash it by hand or machine with warm water.
Also, you can use a stain remover or detergent; allow the cleaning agent to sit in the affected area for some time. However, ensure you read the care label to know if the fabric should be hand-washed or machine-washed and if it’s compatible with warm water.
Air-dry the cloth
Air-drying the cloth makes the stain removal permanent. You should spread the fabric in the sunlight, but if there’s no sunlight where you are, a dry and open area will do. However, ensure the stain is gone before you air-dry the cloth. If the vaseline gets onto your cloth in large amounts, you may have to repeat the entire process to remove it altogether.
If you don’t have enough time to go through the process, you can give a dry cleaner to do so for you. Leaving a vaseline-stained cloth for long without removing the stain can lead to permanent blotches on the fabric. This is because vaseline is oil-based, and oil attracts all kinds of dirt.
4 Other Stains And How To Get Rid Of Them
Vaseline isn’t the only thing that can stain your clothes. Since it’s almost impossible to prevent your clothes from getting stained 100% of the time, it’s only fitting that you know how to get rid of the different types of stains you might come across.
Blood
You might have an injury or get touched by someone who’s bloodied. Bloodstains are very visible but don’t have to be permanent if you get rid of them as soon as they occur. The first thing is to wash the blood with plain water. After, apply some vinegar and let it sit for some minutes.
You can also put two or three pinches of baking soda on top. After some minutes, the stain would have faded, and you can wash the cloth normally. You can check this video for more information on how to remove blood stains :
Body fluids
Body fluids are the most common stains on our clothes. Your sweat, saliva, urine, etc., are absorbed by your clothes, making it difficult for you to wear the clothes again without washing. To get body fluids out of clothes, soak them in a hot water solution for some minutes. Ensure the clothes are compatible with hot water before you do so. If they’re not, use warm water.
Food
As you’re enjoying your lunch, a drop of the food can fall right onto your chest, staining your cloth. Just like blood, food stains are removable, too, as long as you work on them quickly. When you find that you have some food on your clothes, scrape it off.
Be careful not to spread the affected area. Put some drops of your detergent, preferably liquid, on it and allow it to stay for 5 minutes. After, dip the affected area into cold water for about 30 minutes. Wash the cloth and air-dry.
Rust
Rust stains are common with clothes that have metal pieces such as buttons, etc. Rust stains on your clothes doesn’t help you make a fashion statement.
To remove rust stains, make a solution of 2 teaspoons of baking soda, a few drops of dishwashing liquid, and vinegar. Apply the solution to the affected area and let it sit for 40 minutes. After, scrub the stain gently and wash the cloth normally.
Summary
Getting vaseline out of your clothes isn’t difficult. You need to follow the steps outlined above and, if need be, repeat the process. However, vaseline stains aren’t the only stains you should look out for. Your clothes can get stained with food, wine, rust, etc., and you have to get rid of them too.
Jessica Oliver is a fashion enthusiast with more than ten years of experience in the industry. She previously managed her own clothing store in New York before becoming a mother of three. With a passion for sustainability and a desire to share clothing care and recycling tips.