How To Remove Pesky Soy Sauce Stains From Your Clothes

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When indulging in a sushi platter or downing some dumplings, it's pretty common to find your clothes speckled with soy sauce. The soybean condiment is a staple for enjoying Asian cuisine, but the potential risk of staining your clothes with the dark-colored liquid can take some of the delight out of the dining experience. Since soy sauce leans more toward the darker side of seasonings, they are more likely to stain fabrics. The added salt and oil within the ingredient can make it difficult to completely remove before it ruins the article. If you manage to get soy sauce on your clothes and don't have Tide Stain Remover on hand, fret not! While annoying, this tasty condiment is not one of the toughest laundry stains. Learning how to get it out is easier than you think.

First, prepare your supplies. For immediate soy sauce stain treatment, you'll need something to blot and absorb the liquid from the clothing item. Dry napkins and towels (paper or cloth) work well. Access to running water, a sink, and a washing machine is best. For set-in stains, you'll need a laundry room staple to pretreat fabric — heavy-duty laundry detergent — to apply after blotting the soy sauce but before laundering. You can also use bleach or its color-safe, gentler alternative, oxygen bleach, on stubborn stains. Other proven pretreatment options include liquid dish soap or commercial stain remover. This ensures all the soy sauce is removed and your clothing comes out of the wash as good as new.

If you're able, run water over the affected area the moment the soy sauce makes contact with your attire. Make sure the fabric is pulled taut as you do so. Running water through the stain flushes it out of the fabric. If you can't immediately get to running water or remove the garment to run it under water, there's another solution. Use an absorbent towel to gently blot away the stain. Don't press too hard on the affected area — you want to apply just enough pressure to lift the pigment out of the fabric. It's important to make sure you're dabbing, not rubbing, the soy sauce stain, since rubbing can set the liquid into the fabric.

If you can't take immediate action against a soy sauce spill, don't panic! It can still be treated and removed even after it has dried. The fix takes a little more elbow grease depending on how long the splatter has sat on and settled into the affected clothing. As with immediate stain removal, you'll want to flush the stain out with running water. To avoid laundry mistakes that will make the stain way worse, pretreating the garment before throwing it into the wash is essential. Any of the aforementioned products — laundry detergent, bleach, oxygen bleach, commercial stain remover, or liquid dish soap — work well. (Don't use bleach on wool, silk, mohair, leather, or spandex, and check the label for colorfast color.) Soak the clothing in your choice of treatment for at least 1 hour, following the product manufacturer's instructions regarding dilution. After a wash cycle and before drying, check the stain has been fully removed. If it hasn't been completely extracted, repeat the process until it's gone.