How to remove tar from clothes in a couple of steps

To get a tar spot, it is not necessary to hug the pine trees in the forest: it is quite unsuccessful to take out the spruce after the New Year holidays, sit on a fresh pine log on a picnic or on vacation to hang things to dry next to the cedars. Household stains that we encounter on a daily basis are not as difficult to wash away as removing tar from clothes, so you may simply not have the necessary knowledge. This is exactly what we will correct with this step-by-step guide on returning your things to their original appearance.

What not to do?

Let's first discuss what is not worth doing: either because it can make the situation worse, or because it is unlikely to help.

• Do not throw a thing into the washing machine, as if you just stained clothes with dirt. Resin is not the easiest pollution, and without the help of solvents, neither a washing machine nor soaking can remove it.
• Do not rub the pollution: this way you will only help the resin to enter the structure of the fabric, complicating the work of cleaning the pollution. And from light fabrics after such a staining, you generally run the risk of not removing it completely.
• When deciding to use non-trivial methods for removing tar at home, such as soda or vegetable oil, do not count on speed and effectiveness. Firstly, these methods are mentioned as an option to combat the stain remaining from the resin, and secondly, there are other more effective means to remove stains. In fairness, it is worth noting that vegetable oil can really help wipe off the resin if contamination appears on a non-fibrous surface, such as skin. And in mind there are both material and your hands. But for cotton, terry cloth, and even for synthetics, it has a dubious effect.

Tip

The resin has the property of hardening, so if you want to clean a thing without much effort later, try to remove the resin as soon as possible now.

We remove the resin

Want to know how to wipe tar off clothes? The secret is that you just don’t need to wash it! The first step towards clean clothes will be the mechanical removal of contamination.

• It will be easier to remove contamination, the more resin you can remove before using solvents. Make your job easier by picking up the maximum amount of resin with a sharp object or, for lack of anything sharp at hand, with your nails.
• If you have removed almost all of the resin, you can skip this step, but if you still cannot see the structure of the fabric through the resin, you need to reduce its amount even more. To do this, throw clothes in the freezer for an hour or put something cold on the stain, such as frozen vegetables or meat. After freezing, some more resin can be cleaned by rubbing the stain: the resin should crack and crumble, leaving behind a less frightening stain.
• Another mechanical method of removing the resin can be considered to be heating the contamination with an iron, so that the resin, having adopted a tough state, transfers to the prepared substrates in the form of a sheet of paper napkins or strips of cotton cloth. This method is advisable if you have already tried both of the previous ones, but there is still a lot of resin in the fabric structure, and if you do not want to remove the stain with solvents from a delicate or dyed fabric. For those who are still going to resort to less gentle methods, this step is not necessary at all.

Tip

To prevent dirt from creeping around your clothing while you try to clean it, sprinkle the area around with talcum powder, moisten it with water, or oil it.

Wash the stain

No matter what delicate methods of disposal of pine resin and other conifers you find on the Internet, their effectiveness and speed of action can not be compared with the strength of solvents. Of course, all of these substances are quite aggressive, and we advise you to test them on a small inconspicuous area of ​​clothing before pouring a stain on them. But it is they who are able to wipe off the resin almost instantly and save a lot of time, and in a world with a frantic pace of life this is quite a valuable property.

Let's start with the tool that has the most positive reviews, and this is ordinary alcohol. After wetting a cotton swab or cotton swab in alcohol and rubbing the stain a little, you can clean your clothes in just a few minutes. But this is if you have not neglected the preparatory stage and removed the maximum amount of resin mechanically. You can try to remove a thick layer of resin with alcohol for days and weeks - this is how important the first stage is. If your pollution is not too old and you did everything according to our instructions, then most likely you will not have to do anything else. In this case, alcohol will have the least destructive effect on the color and structure of the fabric.

What to do with a stain that cannot be washed with alcohol in any way? To wipe it off will help more aggressive means that will not stand on ceremony with pollution:

• "White Spirit";
• acetone;
• ammonia;
• refined gasoline;
• turpentine.

You can wash the resin with at least liquid polish remover, if nothing else is at hand. True, it is worth mentioning that wiping off the stain with ordinary gasoline, which you refuel the car, will not work: you just put a new stain on the clothes. In addition, any of these products is best applied with a cotton swab without touching a clean area of ​​the fabric so as not to damage its structure.

Tip

Using solvent is the fastest way to clean clothes, but consider the damage that it can potentially do. If the fabric is too thin, and its paint is not too resistant, it is better to spend more time and remove the stain with alcohol than to cry over the irreparably damaged thing.

Remove traces and odor

Did you manage to clean the thing from the stain, but now there are stains on your clothes, and the smell of solvent is so persistent that it does not disappear? In order to remove stains and smell, you need to wash the item in the washing machine with the addition of dishwashing detergent or stain remover. You can also use liquid detergents to enhance the effect.

Tip

Do not forget about such a useful thing as air conditioning. You may not use it normally, but after using solvents it can come in handy, as it can drown out the unpleasant odor. After all, it is better to smell the aroma of alpine meadows than to have a train like from an old workshop worker jacket.

It is possible to clean the tar from clothes and save your favorite thing if you follow this instruction step by step. From now on, you will be more careful, but this useful knowledge will forever remain with you in case of unforeseen situations.