How to Remove Hot Sauce Stains

Red peppers give hot sauce its color.

Hot sauce stains are hard to avoid, especially when slathering food with the fiery condiment. Many people mistakenly think that all hot sauces contain tomatoes for their red color. Actually, very few brands of hot sauce contain tomatoes. The red color in hot sauce comes from red peppers, which are what make the sauce spicy. Because peppers are organic, like tomatoes, many of the same methods used to remove ketchup are also used to remove hot sauce.

Things You'll Need

• Laundry detergent
• White vinegar
• Cloth
• Warm water

Instructions

1. Rinse off as much of the hot sauce as possible under warm running water.

2. Apply a small amount of laundry detergent and let sit for 10 minutes.

3. Rinse off the detergent under warm running water.

4. Pour white vinegar onto a clean cloth and blot at the hot sauce stain. Repeat until as much of the stain as possible has been lifted from the garment.

5. Rinse well under warm running water. Inspect the garment for any traces of the stain. If the stain is still visible, repeat steps 2 through 5.

6. Launder as usual. Be sure the stain has been completely removed before placing the garment in the dryer, as heat from the dryer will set the stain permanently.

Tips & Warnings

• For best results, treat the stain as soon as possible.

References

• Stain-Removal-101.com: Remove Hot Sauce Stains
• Fibers.com: Removing Hot Sauce Stains From Clothing