There’s nothing more painful than when our favorite cloth gets ruined. It’s not that we can’t afford another cloth or don’t have a wardrobe full of them, but this particular one just can’t be replaced we think.
Dish soaps sometimes leave stains on our clothes but they don’t have to stay stained or be abandoned. They can be fixed. I know you are glad to hear that.
In this article, we have listed different methods of getting rid of dish soap stains from clothes in easy steps. We have also explained how you can avoid ruining your clothes while doing laundry in the future so you don’t have to always deal with this.
Dawn Dish Soap Stained My Shirt! (What to Do?)
Why Does Dawn Dish Soap Stain Clothes?
Dawn dish soap works great in keeping our dishes, sink, and our kitchens generally clean. But not only that, but dawn dish soap is also great at removing stains from clothes.
Dawn dish soap does not stain cloth if used to remove grease stains and they do not destroy fabric but if used inappropriately this may happen.
1- If you use dawn dish soap to wash your clothes, they could get stained.
Dawn dish soap can be used to remove stains from a particular spot on your cloth by hand washing, but putting dawn dish in your washing machine to wash the entire cloth can spell doom.
This is because dish soaps have lots of suds. It will be hard to get all that foam out of your clothes and drying the clothes with the suds in them will cause them to have white streaks/spots all over.
Too much suds in your washing machine could also damage it. Stick to laundry detergents.
2- Even though dawn dish soap does not have ammonia, it should not be mixed with bleach or used with it. It says that on the label, but some people still do.
Using them together can cause toxic fumes that can hurt you. But not just that, your clothes could be damaged.
Dawn dish soap already works like bleach removing tough stains and grease spots on fabrics, what do you think combining it with bleach will do to your clothes?
So if you notice a stain on your clothes after using dawn dish soap, it could be you also used bleach.
3- Dawn dish soap is powerful, and even though it can be used to remove stains from clothes, it shouldn’t be left for a long time on your cloth.
Putting some drops of dawn dish soap on your stained cloth and leaving it for hours or overnight because you want it to work well, can cause your cloth to be discolored.
It could whiten that area of the cloth so it looks different from the other parts of the cloth. So avoid that.
If you have a stain on your cloth, either put a drop of dawn dish soap on the spot after wetting it and wash immediately or mix the dawn dish soap with water in a bowl before putting it in your cloth to wash.
How Do You Get a Dish Soap Stain Out of Clothes?
If the stain is in form of white streaks as a result of stuck-on soap suds, then you can try these methods.
Method 1: Using Vinegar & Warm Water
Vinegar is great at removing dish soap residues from clothes because it relaxes the clothes. This allows the residues trapped in them to get out easily.
Vinegar is also a great remedy because it won’t damage your clothes no matter how long they sit in the solution.
YOU’LL NEED
1- Vinegar
2- Water
3- Bucket
STEPS
STEP 1: Pour 1 quart of warm water into a bucket and add 1 cup of vinegar. Mix it well.
STEP 2: Put the cloth with the dish soap stain inside the solution and rub it together, as if you are washing the clothes.
Pay more attention to the parts with the stains. You can do this in a washer if you want. Don’t put detergent into the washing machine.
STEP 3: Allow the cloth to soak in the solution for 1 hour after washing. You can leave it for longer if you want.
STEP 4: Wash the cloth again, then rinse with cold water. The dish soap stains should have disappeared. If there are some left, you can repeat the process.
STEP 5: Dry the cloth.
Method 2: Using Baking soda
Don’t want to use vinegar? Well, here’s another option for you. The good news is, not only does baking soda remove stains from clothes, but it also removes odor and deodorizes them.
STEP 1: Pour 1 gallon of water into a bucket and add 1/2 cup of baking soda. No more, no less.
STEP 2: Put the clothes with the dish soap stains inside the bucket and let them soak. If the clothes have different colors and you don’t know if they will bleed, you may need to soak them differently.
STEP 3: Don’t wash the clothes. Just let them soak for about an hour.
STEP 4: After 1 hour, wash the clothes, paying attention to the spots with dish soap stains. Do not add detergent.
STEP 5: Rinse the clothes in warm water and let them dry.
If dish soap stains appear more like a bleaching effect, then the methods above won’t work. It means the dish soap has taken the dye out of those areas that appear to be stained.
The only solution is to redye those stained areas. This is how you can do it:
Method 1: Baking Soda & Rubbing Alcohol
This method should only be used on dark clothing. It may not give you the desired result on other colors.
YOU’LL NEED
1- Baking soda
2- Rubbing alcohol
3- Cotton ball
4- Water
5- Knife
STEPS
STEP 1: First, remove the dish soap residue from the spot. You probably spot cleaned the spot with undiluted dish soap and left it there for a long time, which led to the bleaching. So you need to ensure the dish soap is totally gone.
STEP 2: So rinse that spot with water and put a baking soda paste on it. You get a baking soda paste by mixing the powder with some water.
STEP 3: Allow the baking soda paste to sit on that bleached spot until it dries off. The paste will soak up the dish soap residue in that spot.
STEP 4: Gently scrape off the dried baking soda paste on the spot. You can use a small table knife to scrape it off.
STEP 5: Put a small cotton wool ball in rubbing alcohol. Don’t dip it inside. Just wet the surface lightly with it.
STEP 6: Use that wet cotton wool to gently tap the area around the stain in circles. Just tap it round and round the stain.
The dye in that area will begin to loosen and the cotton wool will be stained with the color of the dye.
Then gently move towards the dish soap stain as you tap. The excess dye loosened in the cloth will begin to spread to the bleached spot.
The dye on the cotton wool will stain the spot too as you tap, returning its original color and making it blend with the other parts of the cloth.
Do this until you are satisfied with the result.
Method 2: Redye
Another option is to redye the whole cloth. This method is better if the dish soap stains on the cloth are extensive; maybe all or a larger part of the cloth is bleached.
The process isn’t difficult and while there are many ways of doing this, we have opted to teach you the easiest method, which is the washing machine method. And though you can use homemade dye, professional ones are better and easier.
YOU’LL NEED
1- Dye
2- Detergent
3- Water
4- Bowls
5- Vinegar/salt
STEPS
STEP 1: Wash the cloth. Put the cloth in the washing machine and wash it in a warm cycle. Don’t add detergent. Do not dry the cloth when you are done, you need it wet for the dyeing process.
STEP 2: Prepare your dye. You can use any professional dye you want but we recommend Rit dye.
STEP 3: Pour 1 cup of rit dye into a small bowl and add 4 cups of hot water. The water needs to be very hot for the dye to dissolve well.
STEP 4: If you are dyeing a natural fabric like cotton you need salt, if you are dyeing synthetic like silk or nylon, use vinegar.
STEP 5: Pour 1 cup of salt/vinegar into a small bowl and add 4 cups of hot water. This acts as a fixative to make the dye stick to the cloth.
STEP 6: Remove the detergent cup and pour the dye solution into the dispenser. Pour the salt/ vinegar solution inside too.
STEP 7: Add 4 cups of hot water into the washing machine and set it to wash for 30 minutes. Put it at the hottest temperature possible.
STEP 8: After washing, rinse the cloth until the water is clear. If the color of the dye is seen while rinsing, then keep rinsing. When the water is clear, you can stop.
STEP 9: Wash the cloth in a warm cycle and with a mild detergent. Rinse and dry. The dish soap stains will be totally gone since the whole cloth’s been redyed beautifully.
Final Thoughts!
Dish soap truly removes stains from clothes and works almost instantly, but they sometimes stain clothes too.
But it doesn’t have to be the end of those clothes. They can be fixed. And we have explained different ways this can be done easily and with easy-to-access products.
In addition to the awesome methods explained above, we can also use fabric markers or permanent markers to get rid of these stains, especially if they appear bleached.
