Red wine. Is there any substance more spillable on this earth? Seriously, right behind spaghetti sauce and wing sauce, red wine is one of the most dangerous stain producing things ever to exist.
It’s bad enough to spill anything on your clothes, especially when out for the night. But in the event you stain your favorite shirt, the worst case scenario is you are out of a shirt. But what about spilling in your home? But what of your carpet?
Red wine is delightful…until it spills!
You can’t throw out your carpet! Imagine this… you’re hosting a party, you’re busy ensuring everyone is having a good time, there is plenty of food to go around, and all their glasses are full. Then someone spills. How do you keep your cool knowing your living room will look like a crime scene for all time to come??
Actually, there are commercial red wine stain removers that are pretty effective. Additionally, some carpet cleaning products and stain removers work as well.
There are a couple quick tips and tricks you can use to lift red wine stains from your carpet.
How to Get Red Wine Out Of Carpet
If your red wine spill is fresh. First thing’s first. If your spill is fresh, you’ll want to dab up as much of the wine as you can with a clean cloth. Make sure you aren’t scrubbing, you’re dabbing. Just a gentle motion to lift the stain up too, because you don’t want to press it deeper into the fabric. Using this method you are able to remove the bulk of the wine, the topmost layer, and eliminate most of the coloration effect.
Apply carpet stain remover. Now that your spill is more or less “dry,” that is, you have blotted up the standing red wine from the affected area. It is time to apply some carpet stain remover. As always, make sure you consult the directions and warnings on all labels before using any cleaning products.
Use club soda. Club soda has been long known for its stain scrubbing properties. It’s colorless and odorless, so it serves to dilute the coloration of the redwine. Once applied, the carbonation in club soda works to lift the red wine stain from carpet fabric.
When using club soda you still want to use the dab technique. Even though it dilutes and helps to lift the red wine, you do not want to scrub. This will work the stain into the carpet and make matters worse for you.
Just pour some club soda onto the affected area and gently dab the excess moisture with a clean cloth. You can also use a towel or sponge.
Use…more wine? If you don’t have a stain remover or club soda at your home, there is one counterintuitive method to help with the stain – more wine. White wine, specifically. That’s right. Applying white wine can actually help neutralize the red wine stains by diluting the color and making it easier to lift from the carpet fabrics.
Again, we are dabbing. Use the same methodology and approach as explained for club soda.
Apply salt. You can use salt to absorb the remaining moisture. Just pour enough salt to cover the area. This will absorb the wine, but leave enough additional for good measure. Give the salt a minute or two to soak up all the wine, then you will be able to vacuum the wine out of the carpet, inside its little salt compartment.
There you go! You now have a couple different ways to handle red wine stains in your carpet! If you have had to go through this once before, remember it is always most efficient and easiest just to have carpet cleaner stored somewhere in your house!
