While working on your car or other equipment, and even while riding on a bus or in an automobile, you can easily set annoying engine oil stains on your clothes. This greasy substance is able to saturate the fibers of fabric the clothes are made from. Trying to remove the oil using traditional detergents can make you feel desperate, because the noticeable stains of oil will stay on your garments even after washing. Nevertheless, housewives know how to get rid of even the most complex stains, and we will lend their expertise in this article.
Removing engine oil from clothing is a rather tricky task. It gets especially hard when it comes to stained down jackets, coats and strong fabrics, including jeans.
The usual laundry detergents are ineffective with the stains left by technical fluids. Don’t go crazy with bleachers – they can spoil fabric.
Using brushes for cleaning your garments can make the material thin. That’s why you need to be incredibly resourceful in searching for the way to recover former look of your clothes. All in all, if you got an issue with greasy stains on your favorite clothing, you should consider the type of the fabric.
How to remove oil from outerwear
The engine oil stains on fabric can be either fresh or set in. Obviously, it is much easier to deal with the stain you just got, so act quickly, but don’t forget to be careful – fine and delicate fabrics can simply come apart affected by solvents.
So how to remove a fresh engine oil stain from fabrics? There are a few basic methods:
- Cover the greasy spot with dish soap and allow it to set for 15 minutes. Then remove it from fabric using a towel or rag and hand wash the clothes with laundry detergent.
- A fresh stain is easy to get rid of with the use of powdered white chalk. Sprinkle the spot with the chalk; wait until it absorbs the oil, then remove. Wash the clothes as usual after the procedure. Remember that the given technique works best when the stain is still sticky.
- Cover the stain with paint thinner or kerosene. Pour the liquid on the spot and try to move it closer to the center using a towel. After that, you will still have splotches on the jacket, which can be removed by washing the garment in the washing machine at the highest temperature allowed (according to instruction on the fabric care label).
In case the oil has set deeply into the material, consider using the following methods:
- If you revealed the stain late, you can try removing it with gasoline. Dip two towels in gas and put them over and under the stain for half an hour. Gasoline will make the oil dissolve and absorb into the towels. Wash the clothes afterward.
- You can try to wash set in stains off a down jacket at home if it is a dark color – then you should carefully treat the stain with paint thinner, and wash the jacket several times in a washing machine. If you have a light-toned or brand-new jacket, you’d better not risk it, and reach out to a dry cleaning service.
How to get rid of an oil stain on jeans
Denim is the fabric that suffers engine oil stains most frequently, since jeans are popular with both men and women and are worn everywhere. A brush will help to remove a greasy stain from the fabric, but first of all, you should use a solvent, then pour some laundry detergent over the stain, and saturate it with water. After that forcefully brush the material.
It stands to mention that sometimes the mixture of ammonia and turpentine can be an effective cleaner. Cover the stained clothes with that mixture and rub the stain out using a towel. Finally, wash the clothes in soapy water. Don’t forget that turpentine has an unusual and persistent aroma, so have the patience to wash the jeans several times.
In household stores, you can find a specialized spray for neutralizing oil stains. We would recommend that kind of spray to the people that have to come in contact with the technical liquids often.
Experienced housewives claim that you can get rid of any fresh stain, so we would highly recommend not putting off the removing of the stains of different technical liquids from the clothes. Sometimes 2-3 minutes is enough to make the clothes clean again and save money on buying new stuff. Follow the given advice and recommendations, and you will not ruin the stained garments that can cost you a fortune.