7 Stain Removal Mistakes You Might Be Making

If a stain is treated incorrectly, it will set and become harder to remove.

Preserve your favorite garments by avoiding these common stain removal slipups with the help of a laundry expert. Halyna Romaniv/Getty Images/TCA

Stains are an inevitable part of life, but it can feel particularly upsetting when you drop makeup on a delicate blouse or spill red wine on your new cream-colored carpet. And while there is a proper stain removal method for just about every surface, the panic will set in faster than the stain itself if you’re not sure how to best treat it in the moment.

To help prepare you for the unavoidable, we turned to the experts. Wendy Saladyga, stain expert and senior manager of technical performance at Henkel for Persil, is sharing the stain removal mistakes she sees most often in her line of work—and how to avoid them.

1. Letting Stains Sit

One of the most crucial errors you can make is waiting to treat stains. “Letting stains sit for too long can make them more difficult to remove, as the stain soaks into and dries in the fabric,” Saladyga says.