Removing Blood Stains from Bedding

The first thing to think about when you attempt to remove any kind of stain is, how fresh is it? It's very difficult to remove old stains. I recommend that you take the blood stain and put it in cold water to soak if it's older than 24 hours. Then it will be easier to remove. Even if the blood stain is new, you must work on it with cold water, as hot water can set the stain (denature the hemoglobin in the blood so it sticks in the fabric) and make it permanent. Shampoo can take out blood stains that are fairly new (only a few hours old), but for older stains, you may need something else (though shampoo has been known to work in most cases).

Other options include using a paste of laundry detergent and water, adding a little ammonia or 3% hydrogen peroxide to the stain and laundering, and, if the blood stain is older than 48 hours old, you can use an enzyme presoak to loosen the stain. Some recommend that you use a combination of an hour's soaking in cold water with one half hour of sitting with powdered meat tenderizer on it. Then wash the stain and tenderizer away with cold water. You can also use dishwashing detergent (the kind you use to do the dishes by hand, and don't use type that is for automatic dishwashers; also, only use those that contain bleach if your bedding is already white).

I've also known one person to say that you can only disguise the blood stains (i.e. bleach them so they are no longer visible on the fabric) when you use peroxide or chlorine to get the stain out, and that the best thing to do to actually remove, say, an older stain (one that's yellow or a little orange) is to use a rust-removing cleaner that contains phosphoric or oxalic acid because the iron in the blood stain has reacted and set in. According to him, you just rinse a couple of times with the cleaner and then put it through a wash in normal laundry detergent.