In this article I look at folk lore cures and high-tech solutions to find out what you really need to do when that bottle of holiday Merlot ends up on your pristine beige carpet. Which ones work and which ones don’t? Here is what I’ve discovered.
Does pouring white wine on red wine spills really work?
A bottle of white wine is usually the first thing someone reaches for when red wine gets spilled on the carpet. But hold your horses. Most of the reviews I came across said this was useless at best. It could also be a waste of a half-decent bottle of Chardonnay. Even if white wine does remove some of the red wine stain, a nasty brown stain can develop over time as a result of the sugars in the white wine. So avoid this old wives’ tale remedy at all costs.
What about soda water?
Soda water may dilute the stain a bit but it won’t do much more. There certainly doesn’t seem to be a good scientific reason why the bubbles in soda water would be likely to make it any more effective than using ordinary water. In any case, it’s not a good idea to make a carpet too wet. So avoid this one too.
What about cornstarch or talcum powder?
Some people say that if you sprinkle a fresh red wine stain with cornstarch (cornflour) or talcum powder, you can simply vacuum the powder up in the morning and all will be hunky dory. But some reports state that cornstarch or talcum powder will set the tannin pigments in red wine which will make the stain harder to shift. So my advice is to leave these two things well alone.
What about sprinkling it with loads of salt and leaving overnight?
This idea receives slightly mixed reports. Some people say that you should sprinkle a fresh red wine stain with a thick layer of salt, leave it to dry for a day then simply vacuum it up. But one commentator mentioned that, like cornstarch and talc, it can set the tannin pigments in some wines. So it really is best to leave the salt in the kitchen.
Surely baking soda has got to work?
Well, a thick paste of baking soda over a blotted red wine stain will absorb some of the stain and shouldn’t make matters worse. But it probably won’t get rid of the stain completely.
Well what should I do then?
First – act as quickly as possible. Blot the stain with kitchen paper or clean white rags to get out as much of the wine as possible. Now I like to be as green where I can, but red wine is one of the areas where the green solutions don’t seem to work as well as the chemical ones.
If you’ve got some specialist cleaner tucked away, like Vanish Oxi-Action Carpet and Upholstery Stain Remover and you already know it will not mark or lighten your carpet you could try using that, according to the instructions on the product. If you’re ultra-organized, you might also want to buy a specialist product called Wine Away. It’s expensive but works well.
But best of all it seems is a simple cleaning recipe submitted to the internet by an American lady called Patti. Here’s how it works.
Mix one cup of water with half a cup of hydrogen peroxide solution. (You can buy hydrogen peroxide as a 5% solution in pharmacists where it’s usually bought as a disinfectant or mouthwash.) Add a squirt of carpet shampoo and put the mixture in a spray bottle. Before going any further, check that the mixture on an inconspicuous area of your carpet to make sure it will not lighten it. Hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent and although this solution is very weak, it could affect some carpets.
If it looks fine and continues to look fine after a few minutes, you can now spray the mixture onto the stain. You should now see the stain fade away as you spray. Blot up any excess mixture with kitchen towel to minimize the chance of any discolouration.
Remember, this mixture will work on old wine stains as well as new ones.
Will it work on other stuff too?
Yes. It will work on coffee and cola stains as well. And if you mix a little laundry detergent to the solution instead of carpet shampoo, you can use it on stains on clothing. As with carpets, though, test the mixture on the fabric first to make sure it doesn’t fade it.
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