Should I use hairspray to remove a ballpoint ink stain?
Hairspray and water can remove ballpoint ink, but you may be trading one problem for another. That’s because hairspray could contain alcohol and oils such as resins and lanolin. The alcohol in the hairspray can cause color damage especially on silk; likewise, oils and other ingredients could lead to additional stains.
Baking Soda
Baking soda is harmless to the environment and has mild alkali qualities that help it dissolve grease and dirt. Baking soda can be especially helpful in areas served by hard water: Adding baking soda to a washing machine’s rinse cycle will result in clothes that are better rinsed, softer and more stain resistant. Add 1/2 cup baking soda to top-loading machines or 1/4 cup for front-loading machines along with the usual amount of detergent to give the detergent a boost. Baking soda can help increase bleach’s whitening power so much that you’ll be able to use less bleach.
Vinegar
Like baking soda, vinegar can serve a lot of different purposes in the laundry room. When using vinegar in the laundry, use distilled white vinegar, which generally can be found in gallon jugs near the baking or laundry aisles in the grocery store. A mixture of half water and half vinegar makes a good stain pretreatment. Spray a little onto the stain a few minutes before washing and then wash as usual.
Vinegarcan also add a kick to regular laundry detergents. To soften a standard load of wash, add 1/2 cup vinegar during your machine’s last rinse cycle. In addition to softening, vinegar added at this time will help reduce lint buildup, and it tends to help pet owners with hair buildup on their fabrics.
Salt
Salt can also be a good stain remover, especially when the stain is still fresh. Salt can also help maintain and restore bright colors, reduce yellowing, and eliminate mildew in fabrics.
Lemon Juice
But among the Fantastic Four, lemon juice really takes the leading role for laundry tasks. Add 1/2 cup of it to a regular load of laundry during the wash cycle, and it will make the whole load smell fresher. Add it to a load of whites, and the whites become whiter. Combine lemon juice with cream of tartar and you have a very powerful stain remover.
If your tub or shower is made of fiberglass, clean it by wiping on a paste of baking soda and dishwashing liquid with a sponge. Also, the same paste will attack hard-water and rust stains on ceramic tile. Use a nylon scrubber to clean it, then rinse.
Spraying the corners of your tub or your shower doors and walls with vinegar can loosen built-up soap scum. After spraying, allow it to dry. Then simply spray it down again and wipe clean.
Porcelain tubs and sinks can be among the trickiest for stain removal. Have you ever accidentally spilled an entire bottle of shampoo into your white tub and unwittingly let the mess sit there all day? That can certainly clean things up, but it’s not really the recommended method. Instead, pour lemon juice over the stains, then sprinkle on alum powder (usually available in the spice aisle of the grocery store) and thoroughly work into the stain. If the stain doesn’t come out immediately, let the mixture sit on the stain as long as overnight. The next morning, add more lemon juice, scrub again, and rinse.
Non-skid strips or appliques on your shower or tub floor can easily get stained and are often hard to remove. To clean, dampen the appliques and sprinkle baking soda directly onto them. Let this sit for 20 minutes and then scrub and rinse. You can remove the appliques completely by saturating each decal with vinegar to loosen the glue. (For even better results, warm the vinegar in a microwave or on the stove for about three minutes.) Let the vinegar sit for a few minutes, then peel off the decals. You should be able to remove any leftover glue with a damp sponge.
A bathtub ring requires a strong solvent. Try soaking paper towels or your reusable cleaning cloths with undiluted vinegar and placing them on the ring. Let the paper towels or cloths dry out. Afterward, spray the areas again with vinegar, then scrub with a sponge.