How a Stain Remover Gets Stains Out of Laundry

If you often get tough stains on your laundry, you likely have a favorite product that you like to use to get them out rather than running to your dry cleaner each time.  A stain remover can be a garment-saving product, but did you ever wonder how it works?  While bleach largely works by weakening material (and your clothing) until the stain disintegrates, how does a regular stain remover work? 

There are two different general types of stain remover – detergents and soaps.  Each works in a different way.  Detergents act as solvents.  They work by surrounding the molecules in your stain, holding it with a chemical bond that allows it to be removed by water.  Other detergents work through the use of enzymes that break down organic matter such as grass or food.

When it comes to soaps, their stain remover properties are because they act as emulsifiers.  Essentially, they work by lowering the surface tension of the water in your washer.  This makes it easier for the water to get into the small pores in your fabric.  This helps the water scrub the stain away.  The addition of fat molecules in some soaps also allows the product to isolate the stain molecules so that they are unable to cling to the fabric as they are washed away.

A stain remover can be a pretty remarkable product, and knowing how the different ones work can actually help you decide which is best to treat your particular stain.  With this understanding, you can better choose which type of stain remover might be best for your clothing or your child’s clothing the next time you find a big stain.

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