Get Out Blackberry Stains With Lemon Juice

Hi - I visited your site looking for advice on removing blackberry juice stains. My husband was making blackberry jam this evening, and got several splatters of hot blackberry juice on his light green, cotton shirt.

I didn't have any liquid laundry detergent, hydrogen peroxide, or color-safe bleach on hand, so I went the lemon juice route.

You mentioned you didn't have personal experience with this method and would like to hear the results if anyone tried it. Great news! It worked!

By the time I noticed the splatters, some of the stains were up to 3 hours old. There were at least 20 individual stains - most the size of a pencil eraser. I was pretty sure this wasn't going to end well.

First, I ran cold water through each stain. Then I laid the shirt out on our kitchen table and put several drops of lemon juice on each splatter mark. For the bigger stains, I squeezed the bottle briefly to create a stream of juice.

As I was about to walk away to let it set, I noticed one dime-size splatter mark I'd missed completely, hiding in the fold of a cuff. I did not run cold water through this spot, but I did squirt it liberally with lemon juice.

When the timer went off at the 30 minute mark, I was on the phone and whispered to my husband to rinse the juice out of the shirt. I expected him to just leave it on the bathroom counter after the rinse, but instead, he tossed it in the dryer! Unfortunately, I didn't discover this until an hour later.

My original plan had been to rinse out the juice in the sink and run the shirt through the washer; then, IF the stains came out, I would put it in the dryer - but not before. I thought for sure I would find several baked-in blackberry stains all over that shirt.


Instead, there was just one, very faint purple stain - the dime-size mark I didn't run cold water through before applying lemon juice!

In summary, a cold water rinse is clearly important, and lemon juice is simply incredible!!! I couldn't believe my results. I checked the shirt over in good light, and with the exception of the one aforementioned mark, I could not find any sign the shirt had been accosted by hot blackberry juice. Yay!

Lemon juice is my new best friend! Such a simple solution. Love it. Thanks for the recommendation.

Amy / Utah

Taylor says:

Wow, Amy! Thanks for sharing your great results with me.

I love lemon juice too! In fact, I have a whole article about uses of lemon juice for cleaning and stain removal. I'm going to have to add this use too!

I love it when you can find a natural stain remover that works well, because it is better for the environment, your health, and generally also your wallet.

Too bad your husband threw it in the dryer, because you're right that it is much more difficult to remove stains once they have been heat set in the dryer. Fortunately the spot is not in a very noticeable area.

So, does anyone else have any great stain removal stories to share? You can submit your own stain removal tips here, and if you used a specific stain remover with success, you can share your stain remover reviews here.

In addition, you can share your own tips and uses for lemon juice here.

Photo by steve_lodefink

Related Links At Stain-Removal-101.com

Blackberry Stain Removal Instructions

A-Z Stain Removal Guide

Stain Removal Clothes Tips

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