Saving Your Favorite Jeans from Stubborn Stains and Odors

Jeans are expensive. With everyone's stretched budget, people need to learn to preserve the items they already own. There are times when clothing could be saved instead of being thrown out.

Gasoline:
So you were pumping your own gas at the service station and gas spilled on your favorite jeans. Gasoline smell is a tough odor to remove from your clothing. First of all blot all excess gas from your clothing with paper towels and dispose of them in an outside trash, not indoors. Spilled gasoline on rags could be flammable. Then hand wash, and rinse them out as best as you can with detergent and hot water. Don't put them in your washing machine at this point. Your machine will pick up the gas smell. Handwashing will remove most of the actual gasoline, but there will be a strong odor left. Drain wash water, and then get a product called Murphy's Oil Soap. Draw new wash water. Cover the area that the gas was spilled on, and also add it to the new water you are washing the jeans in. Hand wash for about five minutes. Then rewash in a washing machine on the hottest cycle your jeans will take, with your regular detergent. The item should come out smelling normal.

Pine Sap:
This is also a tough situation for jeans. Sap will either be a sticky mess or harden on jeans and be very stubborn to remove. If you get sap on your jeans, move quickly. I have found that hand sanitizer with its high alcohol content will remove sap, if it is done right away. A generous dab of handsanitizer rubbed over sap will help break it down when hand washing an item. Then wash with detergent in a regular machine. Check to see if it is gone. Don't throw it in the drier until all the sap looks removed., because once it is hardened and gone through the drier, it is much less likely to come out of jeans.

Dry Erase Marker Stain:
If you dropped a dry erase marker on your jeans, it will leave a mark that is difficult to remove. Your best bet is isopropyl alcohol. It can help break down the ink. I have also tried using the dry erase marker cleaner that they use to clean the boards. This tends to be a chancy situation, at best. It is hard on the clothign. Removing the mark depends on the color and how quickly it dries on the fabric. I have had luck with darker colors coming out of dark jeans. On lighter colored jeans, the mark will probably not come out.

Mildew Smell:
Your jeans stayed in the trunk in your gym bag too long and now they have that mildew smell that is nasty. No fear, this is what you do. Hand them out in the fresh air and sunshine for a few hours. Then, get a cup of borax-available in the laundry section of your grocery store. Add it to the wash water when you wash clothes in with your regular detergent. They should come out smelling normal. If not, rewash with a cup of vinegar in the wash cycle along with the detergent.

Stopping fading:
Adding a cup of vinegar when washing them the first time can also set the dye and preserve more color.
Turning your jeans inside out when washing, will help preserve the color much longer.

With these hints, your jeans should stay looking and smelling new much longer and save your budget the cost of new jeans.