Nobody wants to come to the realization that their favorite pair of jeans has now been stained with grass. After all, grass is one of the most troublesome stains around, especially with a fabric like denim.
Thankfully, there are a few different ways that you can work on getting the grass stains out of your jeans. You can either use household items and cleaners, or you can consider purchasing a commercial-brand cleaner from the store and use that instead.
Grass stains are one of the most difficult types of stains that people have to deal with. This is because, more often than not, grass stains are actually a combination of dirt, other plant debris, and compounds from the grass itself.
This part is important. The compounds from the grass tend to bind to the natural fibers of clothing, including jeans. Because of this, you can’t simply wash the stain out as you would with any other stain.
Instead, you have to take special care, use specific cleaning methods, and treat the stain so that it can be properly cleaned. When you know what you are doing, you can rest assured knowing that getting grass stains out of your jeans is going to become easier than ever.
Using Household Items to Get Rid of Grass Stains
You may not realize it, but there are plenty of materials within your own home that you can use to get the stains out of your jeans. The main things that you are going to be working with are water, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and even banana oil.
Of course, these are all going to be involved in different methods, but knowing what you need is going to be the first step in preparing yourself to get rid of grass stains.
Even if you do not have these items in your home in the immediate moment, these items are not only incredibly universal and easy to find, but they are often much less expensive than commercial products.
If you are willing to put a little bit of extra work in, household items can be a great alternative to a brand-name cleaner for your grass stains.
With all of this being said, you are going to want to make sure that you always, always pretreat the grass stain before you start using any cleaning products. Pretreatment helps to get rid of as much of the stain as possible, as fast as possible so that it cannot bind to the fibers quite as much.
In many ways, pretreatment is one of the most important steps to keep in mind.
Pretreating the Grass Stain
You should remember that time is going to be the most important aspect of getting a grass stain out of your favorite pair of jeans. The quicker that you take a break and go home to clean your clothes, the better the chances are that you can fully reverse the damage done by the grass.
As for the pretreatment, you are going to want to make sure that you have a few things. You will want to have a free sink or tub that you can soak the jeans in. If you don’t have free space, you could soak them in a container that fits the jeans, but this is more work than is necessary. You are going to want to have powdered detergent as well.
First things first, you are going to want to fill the sink or tub with cool water. You will need to make sure that the water is no hotter than room temperature, as hot water can set the stain and make it permanent.
The colder the water is, the more problems you might have with the detergent, and nobody wants that. Finding the proper balance in water temperature is going to play an important role in the pretreatment process.
From here, you are going to want to make a paste out of your powdered detergent. Once you have that paste ready to go, you will want to thoroughly dab it onto the stain.
You should be doing this enough that you are certain the detergent has gone through all the way down the base of the stain. If you are not sure, adding more detergent paste isn’t going to cause much of an issue.
After that, you will want to leave the jeans in the water for anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes. Keep in mind that the heavier and more deeply set the stain is, the longer you are going to want to wait. Particularly bad stains might even warrant leaving it in the water for more than an hour.
If you have a very bad grass stain or you simply want to throw everything you have at the grass stain to get rid of it, you can consider mixing dish soap and hydrogen peroxide to dab onto the stain instead of detergent.
However, you should always test this mixture in an inconspicuous area first, as hydrogen peroxide is well known for removing certain types of dye.
Now that you have pretreated the grass stain, you can move on to the various methods of cleaning the stain with household items. You might be surprised to know just how effective some of these methods really are, despite how simple they seem.
1 – Using Vinegar
Vinegar is one of the most efficient and easily available ways to get rid of a grass stain. Simply keep in mind that you need to use white vinegar. Fruit vinegar simply will not remove the grass stain.
Vinegar is going to be the best solution if you want to do a gentle cleaning to protect the dye of your jeans.
With vinegar, you will first want to mix it with warm water. Once you have this mixture ready to go, you will want to rub it onto the stain as vigorously as you can. Don’t stop rubbing it into the stain until it begins to disappear and is completely gone.
Assuming your jeans use a typical dye, this method should not remove any of the dye when you rub it into the grass stain.
After you have done this, you can move onto the next step of simply washing the jeans as you otherwise would. After all, nobody wants to deal with vinegar-scented jeans. You don’t really have to do anything special when you wash the jeans, as the purpose of this is to wash the remaining vinegar out of the jeans.
Before you put the jeans in the dryer, you should inspect the area where the stain was. While there shouldn’t be any grass residue left, you should remember that the heat of the dryer will completely set the stain in.
If there is still grass particles left over, you can simply repeat the steps of rubbing the vinegar in and washing your jeans again.
2 – Using Banana Oil
Another household object that might work well for you is amyl acetate, otherwise known as Banana Oil. This oil works extremely well to help get the chlorophyll out of your jeans, which is one of the reasons why it is a beloved method to get rid of said stains.
If you do not have banana oil at your home, you can usually find it in decently sized pharmacy stores.
What you will want to do is rub the oil directly onto the stain, but don’t be too rough with it. Let the oil sit on the stain for approximately five minutes so that the oil can work its magic.
Once you do this, you will need to rinse the stained part of the jeans with warm water to get rid of the oil. When the oil is washed off, the majority of the grass stain should go along with it. You should also fully wash your jeans to make sure that the stain is completely gone.
If this doesn’t quite get the stain to go away, there is a solution that you can consider. You will want to get about one cup of warm water, two tablespoons of a mild detergent, and two tablespoons of ammonia.
If the banana oil didn’t get the job done, this mixture will absolutely clean up the rest of the stain. If you need to apply this method to your jeans, always remember to wash your jeans afterwards to make sure that it was actually effective.
3 – Using Rubbing Alcohol
The third and final household object that does the best job at removing grass stains is going to be rubbing alcohol. All you will really need for this method is the rubbing alcohol and a sponge to dab it onto the stain with. Depending on the size of the stain, you could also consider using cotton swabs or another tool.
You will want to douse the stain in rubbing alcohol, using your swab or sponge to apply it to the stain. Once the rubbing alcohol has dried up and the stain is completely dry, you should rinse it off with cool water. This helps to get rid of the grass stain that has been loosened by the rubbing alcohol.
After you have done this, you will want to use a small amount of liquid detergent, rubbing it into the stain for about five minutes. While this might seem like a lot of time spent rubbing the detergent in, it will ensure that the grass stain will be removed in its entirety.
Once you have done this, you will want to rinse off the stained area with cold water and you should let your jeans dry out in the air.
If you had a particularly bad stain, then you might need to repeat this process once or twice more to get the stain completely gone. With that being said, this method has been tried and true for many, many years, making it something that you can rely on any time your jeans get grass on them.
4 – Using Commercial Cleaners
While using household items is certainly appealing to people who don’t want to make a trip to the store for what will be an occasional problem, sometimes the most efficient way to get rid of a grass stain is to use something that has been chemically engineered to do exactly that.
Commercial products tend to be slightly more expensive overall, but they also work much more quickly than most household remedies.
There are a few things to remember if you are going to choose commercial brand products over household items. First things first, you are always going to want to try the product on a small, inconspicuous area of the jeans so that you can see if it discolors the fabric at all. This should be the first thing you do whenever you are applying something new to a fabric.
You are always going to want to use cooler water, or room temperature water, as this helps to dissolve the detergent best. Cold water still works, but it won’t be nearly as quick.
Hot water might work well, but it will end up setting the grass stain and making it permanent enough that most commercial products won’t be able to remove it.
What Should You Remember?
In the end, no matter which method you choose, there are going to be a few universal rules that you need to remember. For one, time is going to be of the essence.
The faster that you can get to your home to remove the stain, the better the chances are that you can actually get rid of it. The longer you wait, the more the stain will set in and nobody wants this to happen.
Secondly, you should always remember to use cool, room-temperature water when you are cleaning the stain. This will help the detergents and cleaners work to the best of their abilities, increasing the chances that you will be able to successfully remove the stain.
If you only have the choice between cold and hot water, you should always aim for the colder method, as hot water will make the stain permanent.
Finally, you should remember never to rub the stain too much, outside of cleaning it. Rubbing the stain helps the little particles dig deeper into the fibers of the fabric, essentially spreading the stain and making it harder to remove.
The only time you should be touching the stain is when you are rubbing a cleaning product onto it.
I have two Associate’s degrees, one in Medical Assisting and the other in Computer Technician, and I am roughly five classes from a bachelor’s degree. Though I never ended up working in the medical field, I have five and a half years of experience in IT. I recently became a stay-at-home mom to my two young boys, and I’m so excited to start this adventure with them! In my spare time, I love to bake and read pretty much anything I can get my hands on.