Tricks for removing tough stains from clothes

Washing clothes has never been as simple as it is today: pop them in the drum, add the detergent and softener, set the wash and, in a couple of hours, you have a clean load ready to hang out or move to the dryer. At the Tenerife launderette you can cut the washing and drying time considerably, as long as your clothes don't have tough stains.

If they do, there are a few tricks to remove them and leave your clothes spotless. Let's take a look.

Removing tough stains at the Tenerife launderette

If there are children at home, it's essential to know these tricks for removing stains from clothes, though even we adults occasionally manage to get ourselves dirty with coffee, wine or other substances that leave unsightly marks on our clothes.

But let's start with the ones that tend to affect children's clothes.

Dissolve 1 tablespoon of ammonia in 1 litre of water. Dampen the stain thoroughly with the solution and rub gently with a sponge. Within minutes it will lift, and the jeans will be as good as new.

You can also remove it with a bicarbonate paste: two tablespoons of water to one of bicarbonate, apply to the stain for half an hour, rub a little and put it in the machine at the Adeje launderette as usual. Not a trace left.

Dried ink is a real problem to get out of fabrics. Fortunately there are plenty of simple home tricks to remove it. Just put the piece of fabric in a container with a little milk. It will take a while, mind you (about two hours), but the garment will come out beautifully clean.

Surgical spirit works just as well for the same job: place the garment on a clean, dry cloth, drip a few drops of surgical spirit onto the stain and rub with another cloth until the stain disappears.

Here you absolutely must leave the garment to soak, for several hours if possible. Bear in mind that the longer you wait, the harder the stain is to remove. But if you'd rather not wait that long, try applying a few drops of ammonia to the area for 15 minutes.

With the detergent and softener provided by the Tenerife launderette, these stains — given the right pre-treatment — will come out very easily.

Children or adults, we all get messy tucking into a good plate of pasta with tomato sauce (is that why, in the films, all Italians tuck a big napkin into their collar before eating?).

For those stains that refuse to shift, vinegar is perfect: soak the clothes in an equal-parts mixture of vinegar and borax, rub a little and the stain disappears.

Once the stain has been completely removed from the clothing, the self-service launderette in Adeje is the best place to wash everything, as it's open every day from 6 to 22:30, and there are 10, 15 and 20 kg machines that let you do a whole week's washing in 22 minutes, which is how long the wash cycle takes.

Another kind of stain that will stay for good if you're not careful is red wine. If a glass is spilled on the tablecloth or drops fall from the bottle, an immediate way to keep the stain in check is to sprinkle plenty of salt over it. The salt absorbs the tannins in the wine and, when you wash it, the tablecloth will come out as if nothing had happened.

That said, if it's drops of wine on your clothes and you notice some time later, just rinse the garment in sparkling water or vinegar, scrub the stain and wash as usual.

There are two tricks that work very well for removing coffee marks from clothes. One is to whisk an egg yolk into water and rub the stain with this mixture.

The other trick uses lemon: apply it directly to the stain, wait an hour for the fabric to absorb the acid and then wash as normal in the machine.

If you notice them straight after staining yourself, just apply talc or starch to the area and let it dry. The talc will soak up all the grease. Next, mix a little detergent with water and scrub the area with a toothbrush. Then it's ready to go in the machine.

If, on the other hand, you spot the stains some time later, turning to vinegar is effective: with two parts vinegar to one of water, soak the clothes for a few hours, then rub a little with soap and that's it — into the machine.

The advantage of using the machines at the Tenerife launderette and the Adeje launderette is that you can choose the water temperature to help remove really stubborn stains from clothes: a hot wash, for example, for 'tougher' garments like jeans, at a temperature of up to 50°.

What's more, they have a machine-disinfection system using active oxygen that guarantees the machine is completely hygienic after every use. You can wash absolutely any type of clothing, from the most delicate to the most demanding, such as feather-filled duvets.

The Adeje launderette and the Tenerife launderette use industrial machines with extremely high energy efficiency, beating domestic machines by

20% in terms of electricity and water use. And the detergent and softener they include free of charge are eco-friendly, so you'd be actively helping to protect the environment.

It might seem inconvenient to wash away from home, but in reality the self-service launderette in Adeje offers plenty of convenience with large-capacity washers and dryers that get the job done in half the time it would take us at home. What's more, the combination of wash cycles and temperatures together with the chosen detergents and softeners protects your clothes and extends the life of the fabric.