Basic, simple, simple, basic

You don’t need to have the most obscure stain-removing soaps at home (ox gall, anyone?) or break the bank on the most expensive washing machine on the market. There’s just one thing to do:

Yes. Wherever you are. Even if it sometimes means spending the rest of your meal soaked to the skin because of a wine stain.

For the sceptics among you

I stained 4 pieces of cotton fabric, numbered 1 to 4, with the 3 types of stain there are: grease stains (olive oil), enzymatic stains (melted dark chocolate) and oxidisable stains (red wine), to answer two questions:

1. Is it really that bad to wait a few days before washing a stained garment?
2. Should you rub the stain with soap before putting the garment in the washing machine?

To find out, I washed my 4 fabrics in different ways:

• Fabric no. 1 wasn’t soaped, but was machine-washed within an hour of being stained
• Fabric no. 2 was soaped immediately, then machine-washed within an hour
• Fabric no. 3 wasn’t soaped, and was machine-washed 7 days after being stained. Why 7 days? Because I do one wash a week, so a stained garment can end up sitting in my laundry basket for 7 days (which is a really bad idea, mind you)
• Fabric no. 4 was soaped immediately, then machine-washed 7 days later

And here are the results after machine washing and air drying:

The verdict is clear: fabric no. 2 is almost spotless. So here’s my best advice when you’re faced with a stain: soap it immediately and put it in the wash as soon as you can.

If you can’t run a wash right away, still make sure you soap the stain immediately: the two soaped fabrics (no. 2 and no. 4) came out of the machine cleaner than the other two (you’ll have to take my word for it, as it doesn’t really show in the photo). And if you can, get it in the wash quickly too: the two fabrics washed 7 days after being stained (no. 3 and no. 4) came out less clean than the other two. It’s particularly visible with oxidisable stains (the wine stains at the bottom) and with enzymatic stains, because the chocolate went mouldy and marked the fabric (yuck).

Which soap should you use?

To give you the best possible advice in my care articles, I regularly look into the latest laundry and care trends (or sometimes the big scams) and add products to my long list of things to test. Plus, the comments are full of gems, like this one about a stain-removing soap:

As I said above, I haven’t noticed any difference in effectiveness between the various soaps I’ve tested, whether “stain-specific” soaps (like ox gall soap or soap made with terre de Sommières, a French absorbent clay) or really basic supermarket soaps that cost next to nothing.

So while you’re at it, you might as well buy locally made soap. In France, we’re lucky to still have soap makers who produce soap the traditional way, such as the Fer à Cheval soap works in Marseille (we actually sell one of their soaps on the Loom website). Their soaps are made in cauldrons from olive pomace oil, which comes from the second pressing of the olives (the first gives you the olive oil you cook with). But any little bit of old soap will do the trick AS LONG AS YOU SOAP YOUR STAINS IMMEDIATELY, BEFORE THEY GO IN THE MACHINE.

PS: For grease stains, dish soap works very well too. Just make sure you pick a clear one, so it doesn’t leave a coloured mark.

Who am I to give you advice on clothes care?
My name is Claire and I oversee production at Loom. Basically, I try to keep things from going out of stock on our site (OK, it’s not perfect yet, but I’m working on it) and I make sure, at every stage of manufacturing, that the clothes meet our quality standards.
On top of that, I’m passionate about anything that helps our clothes last longer: care, repairs and good old grandma’s tricks. I love giving clothes a little extra soul, reworking them, repairing them, and giving them a second chance when no one else wants them. On these pages, I’ll try to pass on anything I know that might be useful to you.
One last thing: I’ve personally tested every tip you’ll find on this site to make sure it actually works (in other words, this isn’t just a copy-paste of internet searches). If you have new ones to suggest, feel free to leave a comment below this article.

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Banner photo credit: Jason Briscoe.