Whether you’ve indulged in a slice of pumpkin pie (and fed it to your jeans), attempted to carve out the best Jack-o’-lantern, or slopped a spoonful of pumpkin soup down your top, one thing is for sure: pumpkin is a messy fruit that leaves unsightly marks on surfaces!
In its natural form, puréed or liquidised, pumpkin leaves an incredibly obvious orange stain on any fabric or solid surface it comes into contact with.
Clothes, carpets, furniture, pavements, worktops, you name it, it won’t be left unscathed!
So, how do you remove pesky pumpkin stains? Keep on reading to find out.
Tips to Remember When Dealing with Pumpkin Stains
- Act quickly. The faster you respond to the blemish, the better your chances are of removing it in its entirety.
- Don’t dry your tainted outfit until you’ve cleaned all the pumpkin gunk off it. Heat sets stains and makes them trickier to remove. Double-check your clothes before you dry them, and re-treat them if need be.
- Some items may need to be treated more than once. And you may have to swap between methods to take out the whole orange blemish.
- Be careful when handling delicate, vintage or heirloom items. Take your time and choose the safest cleaning solution for the material – this is usually a pH-neutral or specialised cleaner that won’t damage or discolour the material.
- Always do a patch test with your chosen cleaning solution. Simply dab a little product on a hidden patch of material, then wait and see what happens. If nothing happens, continue using the solution. If there’s a reaction, stop what you’re doing and find an alternative treatment.
- Stick to using cold water. Warm or hot water may set the pumpkin stain. Consequently, it will become harder to remove.
- Never scrub a pumpkin stain! Always blot the blemish. Scrubbing drives the juice deeper into the item’s fibres, making it much harder to remove.
- If you’ve got tough pumpkin stains on bleach-friendly clothes, you can soak them in a bucket of diluted, oxygen-safe bleach before you launder them. However, you must check the piece’s care label before you do this. The ‘bleach safe’ symbol is a blank triangle.
- Work from the outside of the blemish and towards its centre to keep the pumpkin stain contained. This limits the spread of the orange squash.
How to Remove Pumpkin Stains from Clothes
Method 1: Liquid laundry detergent
Tools you need:
- Liquid laundry detergent like Persil Bio
- Teaspoon
- Cold running water
- Washing machine or a tub for hand washing clothes
Steps to follow:
- Scrape the pumpkin purée and any stringy bits of your outfit using a teaspoon.
- Hold the garment under the cold water tap and flush water through the back of the stain.
- Coat the whole pumpkin stain in liquid laundry detergent, preferably a biological one (containing enzymes).
- Work the laundry detergent into the material using your fingers – don’t press down too hard.
- Wait ten minutes.
- Wash the item as per the instructions on its care label – hand wash or machine wash.
Method 2: Washing up liquid
Tools you need:
- Teaspoon
- Cold running water
- Washing up liquid
- Washing machine or a tub for hand washing clothes
Steps to follow:
- Remove any excess pumpkin pulp off your garment – do this using a teaspoon.
- Flush cold water through the back of the pumpkin stain.
- Pop a single blob of washing up liquid onto the pumpkin stain.
- Gently massage the washing up liquid into the blemish.
- Wait five minutes.
- Wash the item as per the instructions on its care label – hand wash or machine wash. Use laundry detergent.
Method 3: An official stain remover
Tools you need:
- Teaspoon or credit card
- Cold running water
- Stain remover like Beckmann’s Stain Devil Fruit & Drinks
- Washing machine or a tub for hand washing clothes
Steps to follow:
- Scrape any excess pumpkin off your outfit using a teaspoon or credit card.
- Hold the garment under the cold water tap and flush water through the back of the stain.
- Read the instructions on the specialised stain remover you’ve picked up.
- Apply the stain remover to the pumpkin stain on your garment as per the instructions on the packaging.
- Wait for the specified amount of time.
- Wash the item as per the instructions on its care label – hand wash or machine wash.
Method 4: A dry cleaner
For items labelled ‘Dry Clean Only’, you must carefully remove as much pumpkin grime from the surface as possible, blot it with a neutral-coloured cloth, and then take the outfit to a dry cleaning store.
How to Remove Dried Pumpkin Stains from Carpets and Upholstery
Note: When cleaning carpets and upholstery, you must not saturate the surfaces in water. Furniture and carpets can take a while to dry, and mould will form on them if they’re not dried effectively. This is an entirely different problem and can be tricky to manage. The solution: don’t wet your carpets and upholstery too much, then you’ll avoid this issue altogether.
Tools you need:
- Teaspoon
- Neutral-coloured cloths
- Bowl
- Washing up liquid
- Cool water
- Tablespoon
- Cup
- Optional: White vinegar
- Optional: Hoover
Steps to follow:
- Use a teaspoon to lift off the pumpkin pulp or purée from the surface.
- Grab a neutral-coloured cloth and dab the pumpkin stain to remove as much of it from the carpet/furniture.
- In a bowl, mix one tablespoon of washing up liquid and two cups of cool water – optional: add one tablespoon of white vinegar.
- Stir the mixture.
- Dib a clean, neutral-coloured cloth into the solution.
- Wring the cloth out – the surface must not be saturated in water.
- Repeatedly blot the pumpkin juice stain – use a new patch of cloth each time you blot so you don’t reapply the pumpkin gunk.
- Grab another neutral-coloured cloth and soak it in some fresh, cold water.
- Wring the cloth out and blot the pumpkin stain to rinse it clean.
- Allow the carpet/upholstery to dry before you walk over it/sit on it – open the window(s) and use fans to speed up the drying process.
- You can hoover the carpet when it is dry to re-fluff it (bring back its texture).
Alternative method
If you don’t want to create your own cleaning solution, pick up an off-the-shelf stain remover for carpets and upholstery, like Dr. Beckmann’s Carpet Cleaner & Brush, and treat your blemished surface accordingly.
If your carpet smells a bit whiffy after it’s been tainted by pumpkin juice and guts, you can treat it using the steps above. Then, you can coat the entire area in bicarbonate of soda. By morning, the bicarb will have absorbed the stinky odours, and your carpet will smell normal.
Removing Pumpkin Stains from Other Surfaces
- Tablecloths and napkins – You can clean tablecloths and napkin(s) using the steps above under ‘How to Get Remove from Clothes’. The same cleaning rules apply!
- Paths – To remove pumpkin stains from pathways, you can use soapy water. Mix washing up liquid and water in a bucket, then pour this over the stained path. Rub the surface clean using a cloth or a soft-bristled brush. When you’re done, pour fresh water over the pathway to remove the soap.
- Worktops – Get rid of the excess pumpkin guts and juice by wiping it up with a cloth (dispose of it in the food caddy). Then, grab a second cloth, dip it in soapy water, and clean the surfaces. The faster you get around to cleaning up, the less likely you are to stain your kitchen countertops. While you’re at it, you may as well give the floor a mop because you’re bound to have dropped some stringy strands, seeds, and pumpkin pulp onto it.
Bethan has a passion for exploring, reading, cooking and gardening! When she’s not creating culinary delights for her family, she’s concocting potions to keep her house clean!
