Removing Blood Stains

Blood on clothes or carpet can be tricky to get rid of, and hiding an ugly brown spot is an unappealing choice. (Dripped blood on the carpet? Here, we can just move the coffee table over a few inches.) Here are a few tips to getting rid of unsightly bloodstains for good.

Bloodstains will spread if you soak a stained garment in water right away. If the blood is still wet, and the garment is white or colorfast, a common solution is to put the garment in a sink and pour hydrogen peroxide straight on the stain. (Be careful not to have the fabric folded—make sure the hydrogen peroxide and the blood go through the fabric and down the drain, not right back onto a fold in the fabric). Because blood is organic, it reacts to hydrogen peroxide, and the blood and peroxide will fizz on contact. Often, hydrogen peroxide works so well that the blood just disappears.

Another method for still-wet bloodstains, and evenly slightly dried blood, is to turn the garment inside-out and run cold water through the back of stain. You can remove any remaining blood by washing the garment with laundry detergent and water in the sink. Apply a paste of dry laundry detergent and water to the stain, and allow the paste to sit for five or ten minutes. Then brush away the blood and scrub gently at the stain, or, at this time, apply an enzyme solution if you own one. An enzyme solution works because blood is an organic material. Wash the garment or linen normally in the washing machine, but do not let the stained item go into the dryer without checking the stain. If the stain is not gone, apply a stain remover or another paste, wait, and wash again.

If the blood stain has dried, brush it gently to remove any blood that has not actually stained the fabric, but has dried onto it. Repeated brushing in the direction of the "grain" of the fabric will remove more of the blood, but be careful not to damage the fibers of the cloth. Once you've removed as much of the mark as possible, turn the fabric over and run cold water through the stain. Leave the fabric to soak in liquid laundry or dish detergent and water for about 10 to 15 minutes, or, if the fabric is colorfast, pour a few drops of hydrogen peroxide over the stain. Dried blood can be harder to get out, but once you've completed this pretreatment, it should come out in the normal wash cycle with regular laundry detergent. It will help to pre-treat the fabric with a paste of laundry detergent and water, let the paste sit on the stain for 10 minutes, and leave it on when the garment is thrown into the washer.

Bloodstains are not as difficult to remove as many people may think; a little bit of time and care will make them disappear for good.