Stained tablecloth? You can make it look as good as new with an tried and tested grandmother's remedy
It is inevitable that, during any meal, the tablecloths that protect our tables end up getting stained with traces of food, wine or other drinks. If it is white cotton tablecloths or other not too delicate fabrics, sometimes just a touch of bleach is enough to make the stains disappear, but in the case of more precious fabrics or colored tablecloths, it is certainly not possible to risk irreparably discoloring the fabric with bleach.
In these cases, therefore, one can resort to an alternative and traditional remedy, of those used by our grandmothers, based on Marseille soap and sodium bicarbonate - two substances that are always useful in housework.
Ingredients needed:
- A piece of Marseille soap (a stick - even those from the supermarket are fine - but completely natural ones are better)
- 2 liters of hot water
- 60 grams of cooking salt (even coarse is fine)
- 60 grams of baking soda
How to proceed:
- Fill a basin with hot water
- Pour in the salt and baking soda, and let them dissolve
- Meanwhile, dip the Marseille soap in water, and immediately rub it on the stains to be treated. If necessary, you can also use a toothbrush.
- Soak the tablecloth, and leave it in water for at least 4 hours (even eight hours will be good!)
- Ring it out a little and go to washing it in the washing machine, which thanks to the treatment just carried out, can be more delicate, so a washing cycle at 40 ° with 600 or 800 rpm spinning cycles will be fine, so as to be less aggressive on the fabrics.
If the stains are caused by meat, fish or vegetables, you can also try using hydrogen peroxide (3%) as a pre-treatment, pouring it on the stain, rubbing it with a brush and leaving it to act for 10 minutes before proceeding with the usual washing.
At the time of washing, then, you could also choose to use citric acid: this natural substance acts as a whitener, and you can add a couple of tablespoons directly into the basket. You could also put 3 tablespoons of citric acid in the water of the basin in which you keep the tablecloth to soak after rubbing the Marseille soap!
Have you used these methods before?
