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Oops! You just dropped a sandwich on your favorite polo shirt! How do you remove the mayonnaise from your clothing so you don’t have to throw the shirt away? Simply take a look at our tips and save your shirt.
- Mayonnaise itself doesn’t have much color. However, the condiment contains oil and eggs, which can stain fabric easily because of the oily film left behind.
- The stain will come out with COLD WATER only. Hot water will cause the egg and oil mixture to soak into the fabric even more.
- Our tips for mayonnaise stains work not only for clothing, but for any fabric such as linens or upholstery.
These tips will get your clothing free of mayonnaise stains in no time.
As soon as possible, put a piece of cardboard under the stain if it is a garment like a shirt, so you do not make it worse and spread the stain onto the back of the shirt. Scrape the excess mayonnaise from the fabric with a spoon or carefully with a butter knife, but be careful not to push the stain deeper into the fabric.
Rinse the stained area with cold running water for 4–5 minutes to get the mayonnaise stain removal process started.
Pretreat the stain with a mild dish soap that will cut the grease (or a grease removal laundry pretreat product), by adding a few drops to the stain. You can also apply a small amount of laundry detergent directly on the stain
- With an old toothbrush, work the dish soap or detergent into the stain by gently scrubbing in small circles. Add drops of cold water every minute or so.
- Continue the gentle scrubbing for 5–10 minutes and cover the entire stain. The soap will start to get bubbly and foamy—that is fine.
- Let sit for another 10–15 minutes.
- Gently rinse in clean, cold water to remove the soap and stain.
Machine wash the fabric or garment with the highest temperature appropriate for the type of fabric. Use your favorite laundry detergent. We recommend Persil® ProClean® OXI Power Discs™.
After washing, check the garment to make sure the mayonnaise stain is gone before tossing it into the dryer. If the stain is still visible, repeat Step 3: Pretreat.
After you have confirmed that the stain has been lifted out, toss the item in the dryer as you would normally for that garment or fabric.
- With the cardboard in place behind the stain, lift the solid mayonnaise splotch from the surface of your dry clean only clothing with a dull butter knife or spoon.
- No rubbing! You want to avoid the stain going deeper into the fabric.
- When the solids are gone, blot the oily stain with a clean white paper towel or even a slice of white bread to help absorb the oil.
- As soon as possible, head to the dry cleaners and point out the mayonnaise stains so they can use the best treatment.
We hope you enjoyed our tips on how to remove those oily mayonnaise stains. Don’t forget to check out our other stain-removal tips such as how to remove chocolate stains from your clothing, how to remove tomato stains from clothing, and how to get stains out of carpets and rugs.
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