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A Smidgen of Dish Soap Can Tame Any Stubborn Stain, Laundromat Pro Says

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We’ve all had to say goodbye to a beloved piece of clothing because we couldn’t get a stubborn stain to wash out. There are tons of products that promise to erase all of the frustrating blemishes on our laundry, but chances are you probably already have one sitting on your kitchen sink. It turns out, simple dish soap is the best tool to get out annoying stains once and for all.

It might feel strange tossing dish soap into your laundry washer rather than normal detergent, but laundromat workers apparently swear by it. One such worker shared the tip in a Reddit thread while answering users’ burning questions about getting their clothes clean. The person claimed it’s especially effective on protein-based stains like blood, coffee, food, and grass. You have to admit, considering the volume of dirty clothes the worker deals with in a single day at the laundromat, it makes sense he or she would know exactly how to fix the frustrating issue without it halting the workflow. 

You can use it as a spot treatment directly on the stain before running it through with ordinary laundry soap, or add the dish detergent to your washer. However, you need to make sure you’re not adding too much — a tablespoon or two will be plenty. Otherwise, you might end up with suds overflowing from the machine and causing a whole new kind of problem. 

This trick can also come in handy for cutting down your household costs. Dish soap is generally less expensive than laundry detergent, and you use less of it per load. It’s at least worth testing out on a small batch of clothes to see if you want to make the switch full time. Of course, more delicate fabrics will still probably require a gentler soap, so you maybe shouldn’t do away with the regular laundry suds altogether. At least anyone with athletes in their family who regularly come home with stains covering their uniforms should give this handy hack a shot — and share their results with the rest of the team.

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