A lot of beverages and foods can stain clothes, and if you find yourself in a situation where your clothes or linen have some OJ on them, then you can fix that quickly at home.
Will Orange Juice Stain Clothes?
Yes, orange juice can stain clothes. While the stain is not so severe, it’s a good idea to address the color quickly so you won’t have to deal with a dried-up stain later on. Orange is excellent in soups and juice, but it is never a welcome thing on fabric. Fresh orange juice, for one, doesn’t leave a lot of stains on the material.
However, commercial orange juice is another species of beverage altogether. Commercial orange juice is not just concentrated; it also contains additional chemicals like food dyes and food stabilizers.
In short, the soup that is commercial orange juice is a bit harder on clothes than fresh orange juice, which contains some pulp, fiber, and the actual juice of the orange segments.
Another problem with orange juice (whether organic or not) is that it naturally contains citric acid. Citric acid is a natural bleach, and when you allow the citric acid to linger on fabric, it will have an impact on the color quality of the linen or shirt. The bleaching effect worsens when the material is exposed to direct sunlight. Yes, it’s orange juice, but it can be a pain in the neck, too, as a stain.
Orange juice stains become immediately visible because of the natural tannin content of the juice. Tannins are the component in the fruit that reveals the fruit’s colors. Grapes have much darker tannins, so red wine spills on shirts are never pretty.
The same thing applies to orange juice stains. When you see the stain, make sure that you blot it from the fabric with some paper towels. Make sure that you absorb as much of the OJ from the fabric as possible.
For super fresh stains, you can wash your garment or linen. Common detergents are effective for fruit juice stains. Try to use a detergent that is graded “heavy-duty” for food and beverage stains. Natural soaps or bars are not recommended because they make it harder for stains to come off. You can reserve raw bars and other soaps for batches of laundry that do not have any stains. Remember: natural bars make orange juice stains worse!
How do you remove older orange juice stains?
Let’s say that you usually are very busy at home and you can’t do laundry immediately. There are bound to be some garments at home that have orange juice stains for days or even weeks if you don’t do laundry that often. Should these garments exist, your choice to remove the stains is by using a color-safe oxy-bleach.
Color-safe oxy-bleach is safe to use on colored garments, but they are excellent for removing different kinds of food and beverage stains. These products come in a variety of names. Sometimes they’re called fabric brighteners or oxygen brighteners. They should not be confused with ordinary bleach, which can only be safely used on pure white garments and linen.
What Liquids Stain Clothes?
Nearly any beverage or food item with food dyes or natural colors will stain clothes, just at different degrees. The most common offenders are red wine, tomato sauce, pizza sauce and toppings, different berry types, peanut butter, coffee, all salad dressings including vinaigrettes, ketchup, all kinds of chocolate products, and yes, butter.
Several household items can help remove stains, but please do some research about the stain you are removing before using any of these because there is a fine art to stain removal. Not all stain-removing agents work equally across the spectrum of stains.
Among the most common stain removal items at home are acetone, hydrogen peroxide, pre-wash stain formulas, salt, cornstarch, baking soda, club soda, and white vinegar. Before you turn your noses up on the idea of using white vinegar on garments, hear us out: white vinegar contains compounds that can break down proteins and other compounds on contact.
It is a natural eradicator that prevents some organic compounds from lingering on the garment. Since white vinegar is benign and barely has any color, you won’t have to worry about the white vinegar becoming the stain after working on the affected spot.
How Do You Remove Orange Juice Stains?
Orange juice stains can be remedied immediately by simply laundering or washing the garment after spotting. We’re talking about cleaning it quickly. If you leave the garment in the laundry bin for three days, that is not immediate, and the removal of the stain will take a different route. Heavy-duty detergents can altogether remove any tannings that may have been left as a residue on the fabric after blotting. Right after the staining occurs, make sure you use plenty of paper towels to blot the spot.
You have to get as much of the OJ out before you wash to make the stain removal easier. Some manufacturers also recommend spot-cleaning the garment, which adds a paste of the detergent powder or liquid detergent to the affected part of the garment.
When spot-cleaning or spot-treating a garment, be sure to leave the solution on the garment for at least thirty minutes before washing the garment as usual.
What if a larger piece of fabric is affected? Pre-wash the material and then apply the same amount of spot-treating solution to the affected areas. Let the spot-treatment work for a bit before doing laundry.
If all goes well, the orange juice stain will disappear completely. The ultimate stain removal test is if you can remove all tannin stains from immaculate, white linen. For colored clothes, it is not much of a problem because the colors of the fabric already subdue the yellow-orange tannins.
