Simple Homemade Laundry Stain Remover (Natural and Safe Too)

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Today I am sharing a super simple Homemade Laundry Stain Remover. It is quite effective and I find that it removes most stains.

But one thing I wanted to mention about stain removal (just like I mentioned on the homemade stain removal for carpets and mattresses), the sooner you can attack the stain, the better chance you have of removing it.  Especially when it comes to removing stains naturally and without harsh chemicals.

With that said, I did recently have a situation where I didn’t attack clothing stains immediately and to my amazement, my homemade stain remover did a beautiful job of removing it!

Our oldest was wearing this beautiful lace dress (that I bought from ThredUp online gently used children’s thrift store) and we went out to eat.  She dumped a whole bunch of ketchup on her dress; as it is very light in color and has 2-layers, I thought it was doomed.  I wiped it with a dry napkin, which just spread it more.  It was a busy day and so we didn’t get home for several hours, but not only that, she tossed it in the hamper.  It was there for a couple of days before I stumbled upon it and realized that the ketchup was sitting there for a couple of days now.

So I sprayed it with my solution and then let that sit for a couple of days (instead of washing immediately).  Then it was washed like normal (using my homemade laundry detergent) with the light clothes load and I had really forgotten about the stain when I put that load in to wash.

Well, a week ago, our daughter got it out of her closet to wear and she came running up to me to show me that I got the ketchup stain out!

This wasn’t my first experience with getting stains out with my homemade version, but it was the first time I was faced with set-in ketchup on a double-layer, delicate, light-colored fabric! So I was actually quite surprised because I didn’t know if it would do it.

I have examined this garment so closely to see if I could find any trace of it and NADA! It is completely gone!

This is a very simple spray version. I love spray stain removers like Shout and Resolve, but wanted a natural version

Here’s the very simple recipe and steps to make my Simple Homemade Natural Laundry Stain Remover:

There’s only 2 ingredients needed:

• 3% Hydrogen Peroxide

AND

• Lemon Essential Oil

Here’s how to make it:

For every 1/2 cup of Hydrogen Peroxide (I make it in small quantities as I don’t go through it very quickly), just add 5 drops of Lemon Essential Oil in a spray bottle!

That’s it!

Then just spray it directly onto the stain and let it set for a few minutes to a couple of days depending on how bad the stain is!

Wash your garment like normal after!

*Please note: I haven’t had any garments that have faded or ended up with a spot where this was used, however, you should always test an inconspicuous spot to be sure of color fastness.

The estimated cost per 4oz.

• You would be using 4 oz. of Hydrogen Peroxide which is .88 per 32 oz., so this is approximately .11 worth.
• Essential Oils – I estimate them to be around .01 a drop at the MOST, so in total, you are probably maybe using .05 worth

TOTAL per 4 oz. bottle = .16 – that’s a small price to pay to save your clothes!

If you get any of the items on sale, it would be even less!

Here’s a printable recipe that you can put in your home binder:

We also HIGHLY recommend that you put this in your home binder along with many more things we will be sharing! See all of the information on this in our previous post HERE about Put Together Your Home Binder with Free Downloads.

Finally, use this new thrifty and healthy cleaning product as part of our Spring Cleaning Challenge.

If you want even more ideas too, be sure to visit these links!

• Shopping list to be able to make 23 natural homemade cleaning products for a very low price tag of $12.
• And then if you wanted to make them anti-bacterial and anti-viral, we also shared the natural but effective add-ins for much less HERE.