Reference

Five categories, not forty stains

Almost every stain guide is organised alphabetically, which is no help at all, because the alphabet does not decide the treatment. The chemistry does — and two of the five categories need precisely the opposite of what the other three need.

Last updated 26 July 2026

The rule that never bends

Before any category, one rule, and it is worth more than everything else on this page combined.

The second enemy is time. Conservators are blunt about this too: the older the stain, the harder it is to remove. A one-day-old stain is significantly easier than a two-week-old one, and stains much beyond a couple of months are a different problem entirely. Coffee is the standard example — easy to remove when fresh, effectively permanent if left.

So the whole game is: identify it, treat it cold, and do it now.

Protein — blood, egg, milk, sweat

Cold water, always. Protein denatures when heated and bonds into the fibre, which is the same reaction as cooking egg white and about as reversible. The temperature guide covers this in more detail; it is the one case where a hot wash is worse than no wash.

Enzyme detergents are excellent here — protease is designed to digest exactly this. But never on wool or silk, which are themselves protein, and which the enzyme will digest just as happily.

Tannin — tea, coffee, red wine, fruit juice

Plant polyphenols. Water-soluble while fresh, and they bind quickly. This category contains the two most damaging pieces of folk wisdom in the whole subject.

Do not put salt on it. Conservation guidance is explicit that salt sets tannin stains. Red wine is a tannin stain. Which means the single most repeated stain tip in existence — tip salt on the spilled wine — is not merely useless but actively makes the stain harder to remove.

Do not use soap. Bar soap, the sort you wash your hands with, sets tannin stains and can make them close to impossible to shift. This is a real distinction rather than pedantry: detergent is fine, soap is not. Tannin removers are acid-based, and soap is the wrong direction entirely.

Ammonia is the third reach to avoid — it reacts with acidic food stains to form a permanent salt.

What does work is cool water, promptly, and a detergent solution rather than a soap one. On a fresh spill, plain cold water and patience does most of it.

Oil and grease — butter, cooking oil, cosmetics

The one category where heat is on your side, because oil has to be mobilised before it can go anywhere. This is why 40 °C exists as a sensible setting.

It also wants a surfactant. Washing-up liquid is a genuinely good pre-treatment here — it is engineered to lift fat off surfaces, which is exactly the problem.

One warning worth knowing: oxidised grease resists standard removal entirely. An oil stain that has aged and yellowed is chemically a different thing from a fresh one, and often will not come out at all. Old oil is the category that most reliably defeats people.

Dye — ink, berries, colour transfer

The hardest of the five, because a dye is designed to associate with fibre rather than sit on it. Alcohol or a solvent is the usual approach, applied from the back of the fabric with something absorbent underneath so the dye is pushed out rather than through.

Be realistic here. Partial success is a normal outcome with dye stains, and repeated aggressive attempts often damage the fabric more than the remaining mark does.

Combination — gravy, coffee with cream, make-up

Two or more categories at once, and here the order matters. Professionals treat the greasy component first, and there is a clean physical reason for it.

Oil repels water. Leave the grease in place and no water-based treatment can reach the tannin or protein underneath — you are washing the outside of a waterproof layer. Lift the oil first and everything else becomes accessible.

Grass is the worked example everyone has, and almost everyone mis-files it. It is usually listed as a protein stain, and this site lists it that way too — which is the common filing, and incomplete. Grass is really a combination: chlorophyll along with xanthophyll and carotenoid pigments, which behave like fabric dye and bond into the fibre, plus plant proteins that make the whole thing adhere.

That is precisely why grass is so much harder than blood despite both being called protein stains. It needs both treatments — a solvent or alcohol for the pigment, an enzyme detergent for the protein — and cold water throughout.

Technique, which is where garments actually get ruined

• Tamp or roll. Never rub. Rubbing abrades the fibre surface and drives the stain deeper into it. On silk it does visible damage on its own.
• Expect to repeat. Removal is sequential — each application lifts a percentage, not all of it. One failed attempt is not proof that a stain is permanent.
• Work from the outside inward, and dry the area quickly. Otherwise you trade a stain for a ring.

That last point is the same physics as the water rings on silk: liquid evaporating at the edge of a wet patch carries dissolved material outward and deposits it in a tidemark. The remedy is the same too — wet a wider area, so the edge lands somewhere harmless.

What makes a stain permanent

• Heat applied before the stain is gone — wash, dryer or iron
• Time, as the stain oxidises and bonds into the fibre
• Salt on anything tannin
• Soap on anything tannin
• Ammonia on acidic food stains
• Rubbing, which pushes it in rather than lifting it out

The short version

• No heat until it is gone. The dryer sets more stains than anything else.
• Treat it today. Age is the second enemy and it is not recoverable.
• Protein: cold. Enzymes help, but not on wool or silk.
• Tannin: no salt, no soap, no ammonia. Cool water and detergent.
• Oil: heat and a surfactant. The one category that wants warmth.
• Combination: grease first, because oil blocks everything else.
• Tamp, do not rub. Repeat. Work outward.

Some stains do not come out. Old oil that has oxidised, dye that has bonded, anything that has been through a dryer — these are often genuinely finished, and every guide that implies otherwise is wasting your afternoon and your fabric. Knowing which category you are looking at tells you how hard to try, and when the honest answer is to stop.