Pomegranate juice might be rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and general goodness, but when the red liquid lands on your favourite top, it’s a whole different story!
Your t-shirt certainly won’t feel the healthy benefits of drinking pomegranate juice. And it definitely won’t look attractive!
So, there’s only one thing for it. You must get rid of the scarlet blemish!
Pomegranate juice has the potential to permanently stain clothes if the red liquid isn’t treated in a timely manner and with the right kind of products.
However, like other fruit juices, you stand a very good chance of removing the blemish if you act fast.
Find out how you remove pomegranate juice from your clothes below.
Tips to Consider Before You Begin
- Don’t scrub the pomegranate stain because you’ll drive it deeper into the material’s fibres. Just blot!
- Test your chosen cleaning method before you use it. Find a small, discreet patch of material and dab some solution onto it. Wait a few minutes, and if nothing happens (no discolouration or damage), you can continue using the solution. If something terrible does happen, stop what you’re doing immediately and find an alternative treatment.
- Don’t dry your item of clothing until you’ve removed the entire stain. Heat will set the blemish and make it harder to remove.
- ‘Dry Clean Only’ means DRY CLEAN ONLY. Take your item to a dry cleaning store and ask them to take care of your pomegranate-stained garment for you. If you try to clean the stained item at home, you could ruin the material beyond repair!
- Read the care label on your item of clothing before you treat it to ensure that it can be treated with the products and appliances mentioned below.
- Always use neutral-coloured cloths to blot the stain because this will stop any dyes from transferring between items.
Pomegranate Juice Removal Method
Follow these steps to remove pomegranate juice from your clothes:
- Optional: If you’ve dropped some pomegranate seeds onto yourself, scoop them off using a teaspoon. Put them in a tub or food caddy.
- Remove the pomegranate-stained item from your person.
- Turn the item inside out.
- Hold the stain under the cold water tap with the back of the stain facing upwards. The water will flush the blemish out through the front of the garment.
- Turn your item the right way around. The garment shouldn’t be inside out anymore.
- Place your stained item on a flat surface.
- Tuck a cloth up behind the stain so the juice doesn’t soak into the back of your item.
- Grab some biological liquid detergent. Make sure it’s one that’s packed with enzymes to rip through the stain.
- Pour a measure of the detergent onto the pomegranate juice stain.
- Make sure the red stain is completely covered.
- Wait about five minutes.
- Prepare your washing machine. Make sure it’s clean and empty, pour a measure of detergent into the appliance, and select an appropriate cycle for the material you need to clean (ideally, you should choose the hottest temperature permitted for the material).
- Put your stained item into the washing machine’s drum. Don’t clean the detergent off the garment.
- Run the washing cycle.
- At the end of the washing cycle, check the item and repeat the steps above if the red stain is still present.
- Dry the garment when there is no stain on the item of clothing.
Alternatives Methods
In addition to the above, you could also try the following:
Colour-safe oxygen bleach
Oxygen bleach is a milder form of bleach that can clean and remove unsightly stains from white and colourful clothes.
However, don’t assume that every item you own can be cleaned with oxygen bleach. You must check the care label on your items before trying this method out.
To treat tough pomegranate blemishes, you can soak your garments in a bucket of diluted oxygen bleach or pop some of it into your washing machine and run a cycle to clean them.
Washing-up liquid
If you don’t have liquid laundry detergent at hand, rub some washing-up liquid into the stain.
Wait five minutes, then pop the stained patch of the item in a bowl of cold water. Wait another thirty minutes, then rinse and launder the item as usual.
You must rinse your garment properly before you wash it in an appliance because you shouldn’t put washing-up liquid in a washing machine. If you accidentally do this, the soap might not dissolve effectively in the machine, and you’ll end up with loads of suds in the appliance!
Hydrogen peroxide (for white laundry)
You can use hydrogen peroxide to remove red pomegranate stains from white-coloured clothes.
You shouldn’t use this method on colourful or dark laundry as it will have a bleaching effect.
Consequently, if you try this treatment on them, you’ll end up with a discoloured patch.
Simply blot a little hydrogen peroxide into the stain using a neutral-coloured cloth, leave it there for three to five minutes, and then clean the item with cold water. You can then launder the garment as usual.
Bicarbonate of soda
Bicarbonate of soda is a non-toxic method you can use to remove pomegranate stains from clothes. This technique works well on new stains and won’t cost a fortune to try out!
Fill a bowl with hot water and add a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda to it. Then, soak your pomegranate-stained item in the water for up to thirty minutes (adjust for the size of the stain).
After soaking the garment, rinse it clean using cold water and launder it as normal.
You could also make a paste with some bicarb and water and spread it over the stain.
The paste must be worked into the stain with a toothbrush and allowed to sit on the blemish for about fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, the paste can be rinsed off, and the garment can be laundered.
In addition, you could add a few drops of hydrogen peroxide to the bicarbonate of soda paste if you needed a little more kick!
Chlorine bleach (white clothes only)
Chlorine bleach is a far tougher form of bleach and should only be used on hard-wearing white clothes.
This type of bleach will discolour colourful garments and weaken the fibres of certain materials. So, you should use this method as a ‘last resort’ type of technique.
To use chlorine bleach to clean the pomegranate stains off your clothes, you must dilute a measure of it in water and then soak your laundry in the liquid.
The bleach’s packaging will advise you on what dose to water you need to use. And it’ll tell you how long you can soak your laundry in the mixture for.
After you’ve soaked your stained items in the water, you can rinse them and launder them as normal.
Off-the-shelf stain remover
Pomegranate stains can be removed using official stain removers, like Dr. Beckmann Stain Devils.
However, remember to pick a product that suits the material you need to clean (for example, a delicate cleaner for fragile fabrics). And that you need to choose a solution that can clean fruit-related blemishes.
Of course, not all pomegranate stains can be removed using a specialised product because the age and how significant the blemish is, play a huge role. But this is an avenue worth exploring if you have to deal with fruit-related stains regularly and you’re after a quick solution to the problem.
How to Remove Old Pomegranate Stains from Clothes
If you’ve just got home from work and realised you dropped a little pomegranate juice on yourself earlier in the day, don’t fret. Treat the item using the steps below.
Steps to follow:
- Lay your marked item on a flat surface.
- Pour biological detergent onto the aged pomegranate stain.
- Massage the detergent into the stain using your fingers/cap of the bottle.
- Wait five minutes.
- Fill a clean tub with cold water.
- Put the stained item into the cold water – make sure it’s submerged.
- Wait thirty minutes.
- Rinse the item clean using cold water.
- Wash the garment as usual.
- At the end of the cycle, check the item for stains. Repeat the steps above if there is still pomegranate juice on the item.
- Dry the garment when there is no stain on the item of clothing.
- You may need to treat persistent stains with hydrogen peroxide or bleach (see above for guidance on this).
Tip: Blot stubborn pomegranate stains with a bit of glycerine, and then follow the steps above. The blemish will be easier to get rid of.
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!
