How to Remove Rust from Fabric

By eHow Fashion, Style & Personal Care Editor

Remove rust with some lemon juice

Rate: (98 Ratings)

Rust stains in your favorite fabric? Hold on—you don’t have to throw that favorite shirt away! You’d be surprised at what the help of a little lemon could do; just follow these simple steps to rescue your otherwise-doomed rags.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Lemon Juices
Paper towels
Tide or Cheer brand Laundry Detergents

Step1

Lay the rust-stained fabric over several white paper towels, which will act as a blotter and absorb the rust.

Step2

Cut a lemon in half and saturate the stain with the fresh lemon juice. (Bottled lemon juice will work, too.)

Step3

Set the fabric (with the paper towel blotter beneath) out in the sun to dry. The rust stain will disappear.

Step4

Launder as usual.

Tips & Warnings

Test this method first on a small, inconspicuous area when removing rust from colored fabrics.

Comments

susan6k3 said

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on 11/15/2007 Karen - thank you! i had Barkeepers Friend in the house so I tried it on a favorite white designer blouse that i dry clean because it has delicate embroidery. I made a paste with the cleanser & water & rubbed the paste gently into the stain, put a paper towel underneath. In a few hours the rust stain was completely gone, I just rinsed the spot with water & let dry.

nelles9 said

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on 10/24/2007 600 ml boiling water and 4 t. cream of tartar on fabric that can be washed in hot water, works very well.

dorothyoz said

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on 3/18/2007 I tried the lemon juice method on a couple different rust stains and it didn't work for me. I found a rust remover online (TheRustStore.com) called Magica that takes rust off just about anything.

dorothyoz said

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snayl said

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on 10/10/2006 I had a towel that had held rust stains for several years that I tried to remove with Shout, bleach, the usual suspects, but nothing worked. I couldn't believe it when I first tried the lemon juice-in-the-sun-technique: they had disappeared in a few hours. It really does work.

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