【美国电台节目】活了几十岁，你不一定知道该怎么洗衣服

NADWORNY: The thing my momwas most worried about when I went off to college was that I'd get clothesdirty and I wouldn't be able to get the stains out. I have seen her get wineout of a white dress at a wedding, blood from a sleeve on a shirt, and once awhole bottle of sunscreen out of a canvas tote bag. It's pretty incredible.

I've come home to Erie, Pa.,to spend time in my mom's laundry room. Together, we're going to brush up onthese stain solutions, so that, ultimately, I can pass that knowledge on toyou. But before we get to the tips, I have a stain that needs my mom'simmediate attention.

BRYDON: Oh, sure, honey.

NADWORNY: I actually gotguacamole on my shirt from a delicious lunch we just had.

BRYDON: OK. You want to trythe dish detergent first.

NADWORNY: Since the guacamolehas a lot of oil in it, we start with cold water and dish soap.

BRYDON: So let's do somecold-water rinse.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER RUNNING)

NADWORNY: She runs the shirtunder the cold water...

BRYDON: Then we'll put a dropof dish detergent on it.

NADWORNY: ...And squeezes adime-sized amount of dish soap on it. She says you don't need a lot. Then shemassages the soap into the stain with her finger. We rinse it again with coldwater.

BRYDON: There's a little tinybit left there, you think?

NADWORNY: The stain is notquite out yet, and my mom thinks we need something to get rid of the pigment -that green stain that's leftover.

BRYDON: Let's try a tiny bitof white vinegar.

NADWORNY: We dab it with acotton ball loaded with white vinegar, and then we rinse it again in coldwater. And voila, the remaining green color has completely disappeared.

BRYDON: Pretty amazing, huh?

NADWORNY: Tell me what'shappening.

BRYDON: (Laughter) It's gone.

NADWORNY: On this episode ofNPR's LIFE KIT, we're going to learn how to tackle the most common stains -blood, spaghetti sauce, ink - so we can keep our clothes nice and clean. We'regoing to spend time in my mom's laundry room where she'll explain whathousehold remedies work and why.

Along the way, we'll call upa few experts who actually study stains for their day job. Because the averageAmerican throws away about 80 pounds of clothes a year because they're stainedor faded, and that's bad for the environment and our bank accounts.

Let's first tackle oil stains. That includeslots of food like soup or mayo, spaghetti sauce or salad dressings. The fix -use dish soap. 

Then there's the category ofpigment stains. This is like ink or markers. For those, my go-to is rubbingalcohol, but white vinegar can also help.

For berry stains, likestrawberries or red wine, boiling water can help. And there's no need tomemorize everything. Just have a few that you know and then think like ascientist to get them out.

Here's her explaining how shegot that guacamole stain out.

BRYDON: So sometimes youdon't have a recipe for exactly what the stain is. Like, I didn't know aboutavocado. But avocado oil, you think, OK, I better put some liquid detergent onthat to break up the oil component and then perhaps the alcohol or the whitevinegar to get the green component.

NADWORNY: One of the hardest and most common stains is blood. Cold water is keyfor blood.

EASTER: Blood, basically, iseasier to remove at body temperature or below. You can think of a protein stainas being very similar to a fresh egg that becomes hard or rigid when you cookit or fry the egg. And so you can think of blood in much the same way. It is atotally different stain once it has dried.

NADWORNY: As you may knowfrom experience, it's a lot easier to clean a fresh egg off of the pan than ifyou let it sit for a day or two.

The other stain that I'm constantly battling isink. I am always writing on myself. I forget to cap my pen. I lean against mydesk that has a pen on it. I literally get pen on some item of my clothes atleast once a week, which is why I keep a bottle of rubbing alcohol at my desk.It works magic on ink stains. The other thing with ink is it can take a coupletries to get it out.

When we were in my mom'sbasement, we were working on this really stubborn ink stain, but my mom wasdetermined.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER RUNNING)

BRYDON: So we're just goingto keep putting a little more alcohol on this, and then we're going to put somecold water on it and see what happens.

NADWORNY: She repeated this,squeezing a little bit of rubbing alcohol on the stain, rubbing it with herfinger and then rinsing under cold water.

BRYDON: And this is the kindof stain that drives you crazy because you think you're not making any headway.

NADWORNY: And again, alcohol,cold water. She did it about six more times. And eventually...

BRYDON: Coming out, justslowly, really slowly.

NADWORNY: Got to havepatience.

BRYDON: Got to have patience.

NADWORNY: Repeat, repeat,repeat.

BRYDON: Don't give up on astain. Keep trying. You can probably get 90% of the stains out if you just havea little patience and you work at it. Because sometimes you'll be reallydiscouraged and that ink doesn't come out. And then five minutes later, you'relike, wow, it's either all the way out or it's out so much that I can stillwear this shirt.

But you've got to remember -and this is takeaway No. 6, and this is a really, really big deal - whateveryou do, do not - I repeat, do not - put it in the dryer. The heat will set thestain, and then it is game over.

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