Hops stains

Over the years, writing on this blog, I've been asked a lot about different kinds of stains and how to get it out of denim. Wine, coffee, ink, beer and so on. I have even needed to get some out myself. However, no one has ever asked me about hops, especially just after a beer has been brewed.

You see, I have these raw denim shorts, when we brew beer, and I've had to clean the brewing kettle yesterday. So I got a lot of dirty hops water on them yesterday, but they seem to have handled that pretty well. No stains this morning. I have washed them once already, so the shrinking has been taken care of. All in all, not too bad. 

Day 185 How I washed my jeans

What I think is important when washing your jeans, is to fold them inside out. This keeps a lot of the indigo dye in the denim, which prevents fading, as well as protect the exposed outer seams.


On day 161 I crashed my bike and got a big grease stain on my knee. I always use vanish when washing, and this means my denim too, if they ever get washed. I wasn't sure it would work so well, because the stain has had 20 odd days to settle into the fabric. I am glad to report that the stain is completely gone.


The washing machine I use has a lot of settings, so I choose the one that seems most appropriate, called 'Denim'. The only problem I have is that the program ends with a spin cycle, which I try to avoid. The reason for this is that the spin cycle, no matter how slow, sucks out all the water. This means dye, which means more fading than is absolutely necessary. So I always set my alarm to 5 minutes before the cycle ends, so I can pull the plug and hang them up wet, to dry naturally.

Tomorrow I will publish some photos after the wash, stretching the seams and hanging them up.

Day 161 Grease stain

These jeans are getting washed at the end of the month, and I'd really like to see how this stain on the knee comes out. Probably there forever. I got it when I crashed over the handlebars of my mountain bike going down some stairs in town. Like my mom always used to say, "That'll learn ya".

I'll post a photo after the wash. Maybe I'm lucky and there's no permanent damage.

Day 108 Red Wine Stain

You know, this had to happen. Sooner or later. I do drink a lot of red wine, and when you mix that up with having running kids around, you're bound to sooner or later have it on your clothing.

We have just finished dinner, the kids were on high alert and my wine was in my hand, when a 4 year old boy, who shall remain nameless, ran straight into my hand and a quarter of the glass ended on my jeans, my shirt, the floor and the couch. The shirt I got clean just because I got it soaked immediately. My jeans I decided to leave on, but took a damp cloth and rubbed as much as I could, and nothing more. I didn't have spare clothing, so there wasn't much else I could do, besides it's not the end of the world. The wine stained my left inner thigh and my front right pocket area.

I am writing this post a week later, and I have to say, that if I asked you to show me where the two red wine stains were, you would not be able to find them. I am amazed that there's no stains. Sure the jeans are still dark and all of that raw denim colour stuff, but I know what red wine does to a white shirt. On this raw denim however, there's nothing. So perhaps in the future I'm not going to worry so much about the red wine.

If however you get red wine on your couch, then cover the whole area with salt. It pretty much cleans the stain out by absorbing all the liquid. Works pretty well.

Day 102 Stains

One of the most asked questions and most visited pages on this blog is How to wash your jeans? The second is How to get rid of stains?. Although I am no expert, I have had my share of experiences, this being my second 6 month denim test and all. I have had everything from chewing gum, mud, dirty snow, baby food, porridge, wine, beer and Cava on my jeans and every time succeeded in getting it out. The only difference here, and something that makes it harder is that you cannot use water with raw denim, as it will cause the fabrics to shrink. Makes removing stains from raw denim tough, so rule number one applies, which is to not get anything on your jeans in the first place.

Above is an image from Men's Journal Magazine on how to sort out those stubborn stains. But as I said, this is for when you have already washed your raw jeans and they have shrunk and so on.

What I have found out is this:

• Beer and white wine is not so bad. Just use paper to dab it as much as you can.
• Mud needs to dry first then use a brush to brush it off, as you would with dust.
• Don't get red wine on your jeans. It doesn't come out. If you do get it on the first thing you do is take off your jeans and lie them flat on a table. Then cover the entire stain with fine salt. The salt draws out the wine. Helps a lot, but you're lucky if it removes all.
• Baby food and porridge. Take off as much as you can, then a damp cloth usually gets rid of the rest.
• Grass stains is along with red wine. Don't get it on in the first place. I would assume that once dry, a brush would get rid of a lot. And here I mean a hard bristle brush.

Other than that, if you know of something more, let me know.

Day 94 Grass stains in the park

I've mentioned before how late the sun sets here in Sweden during summer. In the north in the Arctic Circle the sun never sets for a period of about 6 weeks. Down here in the south it sets at about 10pm at night and is up again at around 4am. That means that after work, which ends at 5pm, you still have 5 hours left to enjoy the day. That's why we have so many parks and green spaces in town. So many people just enjoying the fact that summer is here.

Which brings me to grass stains. Anyone know how to get rid of them without using water?

Day 154 | Chewing gum

Finally! It only took one hundred and fifty four days, but finally I got chewing gum on my jeans. It happened tonight while I was attending Swedish class, when I felt my knee get stuck to the bottom of my desk. Some special person thought it was a good place to store their chewed gum, and I was the unfortunate fool who got it on his jeans.

It was luckily very sticky gum, so I managed to get nearly everything off, by just scraping at it with my nails, and using my fingers to pull it off. So my jeans are none the worse for wear. There was a moment of panic right in the beginning, when I realised what it was.

With that, I trawled around the internet to find out how to remove chewing gum from clothing, and stumbled onto this video. Some useful watching. It might save your jeans next time.


Clothing Stains:How To Remove Chewing Gum From Clothes

Day 150 | I think I should celebrate

I can't believe I'm on 150 days. Just more than a month left, then I've had these jeans on every day for 6 months, without a wash. I can hear some people saying "gross!", so I decided to look at that a bit.

Jeans smell, if you sweat when you have them on, and don't allow them to dry properly before you wear them again. Most people I know do not wash their jeans after every time they wear them, but wear between 3 to 5 pairs at any given time. This gives each pair of jeans a chance to dry properly, before they wear them again. It doesn't help if you're folding them up after you wear them and putting them back in your clothing cupboard, if they're not completely dry. This will lead to the germs, that cause the smell, to flourish, and that's "gross!". I wear this one pair all the time, and I take extra care to hang them up every night, and they're completely dry the next day. No smell, hence no "gross!".

The smell is not the only reason it may be "gross!". You also have to consider normal dirt, stains and such. Here there's no help other than dry-cleaning or just self cleaning them as much as possible when it happens. But so far I've kept them fairly clean, and completely smell free. Today however is day 150, and I think I should celebrate.

Day 145 | White stain

Just when I decided to go back to finding out a bit more on stains and how to get rid of them, I found one on my jeans again. Now it's been baby food, beer, wine, mud mixed with snow and more dirt among others that I've had on these jeans.

The trick with stains though is to know what it is, because then it's much easier to get rid of it the right way. Not all stains disappear with a simple cloth and water solution. As for this white stain, it was just toothpaste. Gone with just a wet cloth and water.

If you're interested, then have a look at day 83, day 84 and day 85, where I cover everything from oil stains, protein and dye stains to wax, oil and dye combination stains. And then also how to get rid of them.

Day 128 | All the snow is gone

We had a fantastic start to the day today. We woke up with about 5 inches of snow on the ground. Everything was white, and it was still snowing, when I was on my short walk to work. Absolutely fantastic. Or to me it is anyway, coming from South Africa, where I have never touched snow in 30 or so years.

The only sad thing was that by 5pm it was all gone,
because the temperature went to plus five today. It's been such a weird winter so far. Actually very warm, considering. No rain to speak of. No storms or howling winds. Just the odd day of snow and the odd day of sunshine. I've actually started thinking about summer already.

I'm putting these jeans on the kitchen table again tomorrow and running over it with a damp cloth, just to get the snow and mud splatters from today out again.

Day 121 | More of the same

Last night was one of the best new years of my life. Started off at one house party, where a friend cooked a 4 course meal, and ended up leaving after 12pm, for the next party, which was a dress up affair from the 20s. Think Al Capone and Frank Sinatra. We ended up leaving for home between 5 and 6 this morning. Fantastic.

So my jeans had their first new years party, complete with fireworks and champagne, and no accidental red wine spills. Tomorrow I'll post my 3rd comparison series on how the jeans have changed over the past 121 days. You can view the previous comparisons are here.

Day 120 | Happy new year

Here we are at last, at the end of another year. So much has happened in the past year, but I'm looking forward to 2009 in a way that I haven't before. I have just started my company here in Sweden, and moved into new offices at the beginning of December with new partners. So I am very excited as to the possibilities that the new year will bring.

This year is also the year I'm going to wash these jeans of mine for the first time. Although that's only in March. We'll see what is in store for them till then. So far I've had mud and snow sprayed on them, baby food messed on them, more dirt on them and also lots and lots of rain soaked through them in 2008. There was a couple of drops of beers and some white wine in a club once, but other than that, I think they survived the past 120 days pretty well. Now I'm going to clean them a bit for tonight's party.

Hope you have a fantastic new year. See you on the other side.

Day 117 | I cannot believe it has been this long

I am really astonished at how time has flown by since I bought these jeans on day 1. 117 days already with just 64 more days left, then I can throw them in the washing machine for their first wash, and see them shrink, to provide me with that perfect fit. Or so I hope anyway.

Now that I'm back home, I've been searching the internet for some advice on how to get snow, mixed with mud and sand, off a pair denims, as I needed to know do on day 114, when my "parents in law's" car was stuck in the snow, and I got caught in the spray of a spinning front wheel. I did manage to get most of it off with a damp sponge, without removing too much dye, but if you look carefully, you can still see some traces of the dirt.

The online advice was not really helpful, because everyone suggested waiting for the mud to dry, and then throwing them into the wash. That is exactly what I cannot do for the next 64 days, or until the 3rd of March, because of the test, which requires no wash for six months. Perhaps tomorrow I will just do one more clean with another damp sponge, and hopefully not remove too much dye in the process.

Day 114 | Christmas day

First of all, Merry Christmas. Hope the day's been fantastic. I spent it snowboarding with my extended family, in the sun. It's been absolutely fantastic. Tonight the other part of the family comes over to us for a turkey dinner, followed by sled racing with the kids.

The photo you can see is what my jeans look like right now, after helping my father in law get their car out of the snow. It was stuck, so I went to fetch some sand to throw behind the wheels, to help with the grip on the snow and ice. This proved to be a good idea, cause we got the car out, but a bad end result for my jeans. They got caught in the spray of the spinning wheel, and ended up covered in sand, snow and mud.

I'm waiting for it to dry, so that I can assess the damage, then see if I can brush the worst off. Any other ideas as to what to do? Still have 3 months left before I can wash them.

Day 102 | Brush the marks away

I picked up this mark on my right shin. It's not really a stain, because it didn't soak into the material. I don't know what it was, because it was dry already when I saw it the first time, but it looked like a mix of chocolate and mud.

I managed to get most of it off with my fingers and nails, as you can see from the top photograph. The rest I managed to brush away or off the denim.

The reason I use this brush, is because it is soft, and doesn't damage the denim. It also manages to penetrate the material just enough to get the dirt out, with a couple of hard brushes, leaving the denim as good as new.

Day 101 | Some dry-cleaning

Tomorrow I'm going to take some time and "dry-clean" my jeans a bit. By dry-cleaning I mean with a brush, my nails and a cloth. There's some patches of dust, some stains and a couple of marks I am going to try and get out, without too much of a fuss.

I'll post some photos tomorrow. Have a good weekend.

Day 95 | Baby food

I helped a friend fix up his new apartment today. Ripping down old wallpaper, and tomorrow there's plastering and painting. All of that however was done with old jeans on. Wasn't going to put my new jeans through all of that.

I always knew that I was going to mess something or other on these jeans sooner or later. I just didn't know it was going to be baby food.

This happened while trying to feed a friend's child that did not want to be fed. I did manage to get the food off the jeans, as well as the smell.

I'm definitely going to be more careful in the future, as to what I volunteer for.

Day 85 | Wax, oil and dye combination stains

I've been covering stains on clothing for the past 2 days, covering oil, protein and dye stains. It's been really interesting for me as to how many possibilities there are for removing stains, but that not all methods work for all stains. A lot of the methods are the same in principle, with a slight variation in the theme. The most important thing to remember is that bleach and denim don't mix well, so it's better not to get a stain in the first place.

As I wrote on Day 84 and Day 83, to remove stains from clothing, you have to first determine what created the stain. Fortunately we usually know what we have spilled, dripped or dumped on our clothes, but it's the times when you get home with something on your clothing, that it gets a little more difficult. Reading the label of the product that created the stain, should help in narrowing down your cleaning methods. Below is a list of some common stains and general removal tips.

Wax/Oil/Dye Combination Stains

• Ball-point ink
• Candle wax
• Carbon paper
• Carbon typewriter ribbon
• Crayon
• Eye make-up (mascara, pencil, liner, shadow)
• Floor wax
• Furniture polish
• Lipstick
• Livestock paint
• Pine resin
• Shoe polish
• Tar

"Firstly, spray or sponge with dry cleaning solvent like perchloroethylene or trichloroethylene, then rub a heavy-duty liquid detergent into the stained fabric area and rinse thoroughly. Secondly, soak the stained garment in a dilute solution of all-fabric powdered bleach."

"If the above steps do not remove the stain you can try soaking the garment in a dilute solution of liquid chlorine bleach and water if the clothing is white or light coloured. Warning - bleach damage to coloured garments is irreversible. Since bleaching can alter the colour of the garment, bleach the whole garment and not just a spot. If the stain is not gone in 15 minutes, it cannot be removed by bleaching. More bleaching will only weaken the fabric."

Other common combination stains

• Barbecue sauce
• Calamine lotion
• Ketchup or tomato sauce
• Cocoa or chocolate
• Face make-up (powder, rouge, foundation)
• Gravy
• Hair spray

"First, rub a heavy-duty liquid detergent into the stain then rinse thoroughly. Second, soak the stained garment in a dilute solution of all-fabric powdered bleach."

"If the above steps do not remove the stain you can try soaking the garment in a dilute solution of liquid chlorine bleach and water if the clothing is white or light coloured. Warning - bleach damage to coloured garments is irreversible. Since bleaching can alter the colour of the garment, bleach the whole garment and not just a spot. If the stain is not gone in 15 minutes, it cannot be removed by bleaching. More bleaching will only weaken the fabric."

"Before any spot removal process you should test the product on a non-visible corner of the garment. No method is always one hundred percent successful. Success can be thwarted by length of time the stain has set, the material and dyes that make up the fabric and the make up of the stain itself."

Hope this has helped a little with regards to removing stains. It's sure given me some food for thought next time I grab the general "all purpose" stain remover.

Day 84 | Protein and dye stains

Yesterday I looked a bit at oil stains, and how to get rid of them. Today I'll try and do protein and dye stains.

As I wrote yesterday, to remove stains from clothing, you have to first determine what created the stain. Fortunately we usually know what we have spilled, dripped or dumped on our clothes, but it's the times when you get home with something on your clothing, that it gets a little more difficult. Reading the label of the product that created the stain, should help in narrowing down your cleaning methods. Below is a list of some common stains and general removal tips.

Protein stains

• Baby food
• Milk
• Baby formula
• Mucous
• Blood
• Cheese sauce
• Mud
• Cream
• Pudding
• Egg
• Urine
• Feces
• Vomit
• Gelatin
• White glue; school paste
• Ice cream

"Protein stains should simply be soaked and then agitated in COLD water. Hot water will cook the stain into the fabric. After rinsing out the stain you can launder normally."

Dye Stains

• Cherry, blueberry
• Color bleeding in wash (dye transfer)
• Felt-tip pen (permanent ink-may not come out)
• Grass
• India ink
• Kool-Aid
• Mercurochrome
• Mustard
• Tempera paint

"Dye stains are one of the most difficult to remove. First, soak stain with a heavy-duty liquid detergent and let set for an hour or more. Then rinse thoroughly. Second soak the stained garment in a dilute solution of all-fabric powdered bleach."

"If the above steps does not remove the stain you can try soaking the garment in a dilute solution of liquid chlorine bleach and water if the clothing is white or light coloured. Warning - bleach damage to coloured garments is irreversible. Since bleaching can alter the colour of the garment, bleach the whole garment and not just a spot. If the stain is not gone in 15 minutes, then it cannot be removed by bleaching. More bleaching may weaken the fabric."

Tomorrow I'll look at Wax/Oil/Dye and other combination stains. It just seems that the list of stuff that can stain your clothing is endless, but fortunately the ways of getting the stains out, are too.

Day 83 | Oil stains

As I said yesterday, I want to have a look at how to remove stains from clothing. There's a lot of information out there, but I found some that I think I'll try when I have to. It's going to take a couple of days to cover all the information, so for today we'll look at oil based stains. The best solution as always is obviously to try and not get the stain in the first place, but we all know we don't live in a perfect world.

To remove stains from clothing, you have to first determine what created the stain. Fortunately we usually know what we have spilled, dripped or dumped on our clothes, but it's the times when you get home with something on your clothing, that it gets a little more difficult. Reading the label of the product that created the stain, should help in narrowing down your cleaning methods. Below is a list of some common stains and general removal tips.

Oil based stains:

• Automotive oil
• Hair oil
• Bacon fat
• Hand lotion
• Butter/margarine
• Lard
• Car door grease
• Mayonnaise
• Collar/cuff greasy rings
• Salad dressing
• Cooking fats and oils
• Suntan oil or lotion
• Face creams

"Always try to treat an oil-based stain as soon as it is noticed. The longer you wait, the longer the oil and stain have to set into the deeper layers and threads of the fabric."

"First lay the stain face up on your workspace and sprinkle liberally with baby powder. Let the powder sit on the stain overnight if possible. If you can’t leave it sit over night leave on for several hours. In the morning shake off the powder, then with your hand brush the fabric to remove the remaining powder. If the stain is still very visible re-apply powder and let set another couple hours. Again shake off then brush off remaining powder. This will have absorbed the oil from the fabric."

"Now place your spot on an absorbent towel or paper towels with the stain facing up. Next apply a grease cutting dishwashing liquid directly to the spot with HOT water. Fingers or a toothbrush work well on most fabrics to get the suds into the fibres. The suds will lift any remaining oil from the fabric. Blot with a clean sponge, absorbent towel or paper towels until all of the stain is removed."

"Wash as usual. After washing check the stain. If it is still visible repeat scrubbing with the dishwashing detergent. Do not dry in an automatic dryer until the stain is removed to your satisfaction since drying the garment in an automatic dryer will set the stain."

Tomorrow I'll look into protein and dye stains. Hope this was helpful. I just hope I'll never have to go through this with any of my jeans.