If you’re a big sweaty fiend and you’re perpetually staining your clothes, we’ve got your back (and your stain-laden pits).
Maybe you’re always sweaty, and you’re tired of buying new shirts. Or maybe you’ve got a trusty gym shirt you love, and you can’t bare to throw it away, even though it’s once-white fabric is now a stomach-churning blend of grey and yellow.
Or maybe you’ve had a fever, and you’ve accidentally stained your bed sheet in a miserable bout of midnight sweats.
Whatever the reason, and whatever has been discolored in your body’s overzealous attempts to keep you cool, we’ve got all the tips you need for removing sweat stains. Peel off that grubby shirt, call off your journey to the clothes store and join us, as we bring you everything you need to know about removing sweat stains.
We’ll help to keep your garments fresh and your fabrics unstained.
Here are our top solutions for removing sweat stains…
Acid Is Your friend
Acidic household items should be the first thing you try, since they’re often the easiest and most reliable options for removing sweat stains from your garments. Usually, vinegar or lemon juice will solve your stain-based problems.
Vinegar
Vinegar is great for cleaning all types of things, making it the go-to solution for grandmas around the globe. Because vinegar is made from acetic acid, it has mega-strong acidic properties, so it can bust through dirt, grime, stains and even bacteria.
Whatever sweaty thing you’re trying to get clean, douse it in a mixture of half-cold water, half-distilled white vinegar, and leave it for thirty minutes or so. If it’s a relatively mild stain, that should get rid of the problem.
If that doesn’t work, a more hardcore vinegar-based option is to mix 1 parts distilled white vinegar with two parts water. Soak your garment in this mixture for 30 minutes before wringing it out. Then make a paste with half a cup of baking soda, 1 tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide and 1 tablespoon of salt.
You can add a little more hydrogen peroxide if you haven’t yet made a paste-like texture. When your paste is ready, smush it onto your stains, leave it for 20 minutes before removing the paste, and wash as normal.
Lemon Juice
Another acidic approach is to use lemon juice. Rub some lemon juice on the stain, leave it in the sun for a few hours, then check to see if the stains have disappeared. If that doesn’t work, you can also mix half lemon juice with half warm water, scrub the stains and leave for a few hours.
One of these solutions will probably work, since acid is such a reliable natural cleaner. But if they don’t…
Other Household Solutions
There are lots of other household solutions you can try too:
- Salt: Season that sweat baby! Get one liter of warm water, add 4 to 5 tablespoons of salt, apply to the stain, leave for a few minutes, then wash as normal.
- Baking Soda: Apply some sprinkles of baking soda to the stains, scrub it in vigorously, then leave for 20 to 30 minutes. Then remove the baking soda and wash as normal.
- Aspirin: Add two crushed aspirins to half a cup of warm water. Soak your sweat-stained clothes in the mixture for around three hours, before then washing as normal.
- Dish Soap: Mix two parts hydrogen peroxide with one part dish soap. Apply the mixture to the stain, leave it for an hour then wash as normal.
- Vodka: Mix half warm water with half vodka, then pour your mixture into an empty spray bottle. Spray your stains, then wash them as normal.
- Meat Tenderizer: No, not the hammer thing. Don’t try smashing the stains away. Use the powder instead. Dampen the stain, then sprinkle the tenderizer on the stain, before immediately washing as normal. Then celebrate with a nice tenderized steak.
- Detergent: We’ve left the most obvious solution for last. Get your laundry detergent, mix it with a little warm water to make a paste, and apply the paste onto the stains. Then wash immediately.
How to Prevent Sweat Stains on Clothes
If you can prevent stains, you’ll never have to remove them again, saving you the arduous hassle of having to follow any of the steps above.
The first thing you should do is consider changing your deodorant. Sometimes, so-called sweat stains aren’t actually caused by sweat; they’re actually caused by your deodorant.
The vast majority of deodorants (especially cheaper ones) contain aluminum. This aluminum reacts with stuff in our clothes and stuff in our bodies to cause stains. You should consider switching to an all-natural, non-aluminum deodorant. Not only might that reduce stains, but aluminum deodorants might not be very good for us.
But here’s a twist; you can’t find any antiperspirants which don’t include aluminum, as, in order to be legally categorized by the FDA as an antiperspirant, a deodorant needs to include aluminum salt.
But while you can’t find antiperspirants without aluminum, you can find non-antiperspirant deodorants without aluminum.
Since stains are often caused by a reaction from the aluminum, you might find that switching to a non-aluminum non-antiperspirant deodorant actually reduces your stains, even if it doesn’t necessarily reduce the amount you sweat.
No matter what type of deodorant you use, make sure it’s fully dried on your skin before putting your clothes on. This can go a long way to reducing and removing your sweat stains.
If you’ve been sweating lots and you don’t want your sweat patches to dry and become stained, immediately run those sweat patches under cold water. It won’t necessarily stop the stains from forming, but it’ll dramatically reduce them.
How Can I Remove the Smell of Sweat From Clothes?
The process of removing sweat stains (by any of the methods listed above) will usually also remove the stinky smell of sweat.
But if your stain-removal process hasn’t also removed any bad smells, try this: make a paste of half warm water, half baking soda, apply on the garments for at least 15 minutes, then wash as normal.
If that doesn’t work, try using lemons instead. Squeeze half a dozen lemons, mix their juice with two liters of warm water, soak the clothes in the mixture for 30 minutes, rinse them, then hang them out to dry. Lemon is a master at getting rid of unwanted smells.
If you want to avoid sweaty smells building up, you should of course wash your clothes as soon as you can. If you’re environmentally-conscious and you only like doing laundry when you have a full load, you can throw your sweatiest clothes in your freezer until they’re ready to be washed. This won’t remove the bacteria, but it’ll stop it from growing.
How Not to Remove Sweat Stains
Here are some things you definitely shouldn’t try:
- Using Bleach: Bleach strips color away, so it’ll just replace the sweat stain patches with bright-white patches. Or in some cases, it might make the stain worse. Bleach also degrades the sturdiness of clothing over time.
- Treating Silk and Dry–Clean Only Clothes: If your garments are made from silk, or are dry clean only, don’t try any of the stuff we’ve listed, because you’ll just damage your clothes. Instead, take them to a professional.
- Don’t Tumble-Dry Stained Clothes: Heat embeds stains, so if you tumble-dry an item which is already stained, you’re encouraging that stain to stick around. If you’ve managed to get stains out of a garment and you want to tumble-dry it, make sure the stains are definitely gone before you throw it in your tumble dryer.
Natural Solutions Are Good Solutions
As much as possible, it’s good to use natural solutions to clean your clothes and garments. They’re better for the environment, and you usually have them sitting around at home, so you don’t have to spend time and money picking up new stuff from the store.
Lots of natural stuff can offer great ways to bust through stains and scents on clothes and garments.
There you have it – how to remove sweat stains!
With the above tips, you can prevent, avoid and treat sweat stains, so you no longer have to wander around with sweat-stained clothes. No more stains, no more embarrassment, and no more feeling like a big sweaty ogre.