Removing Fruit Juice Stains

I don't know about you, but my kids seem to be able to get food on their clothes no matter how big a bib you have on them or how many times you tell them to close their mouths when they chew.  I could probably feed them naked into a sterile bubble, and the food would somehow find the clean clothes in their drawer and smear itself all over them.

Of course, it's not always the kids.  My hubby recently got cherry juice on a white shirt (in his defense, my nephew was helping him pit cherries, and he claims that it was actually the nephew who got it on his shirt).  

I was told to pour boiling water over the stain, that it would come right out, and that cold water would set the stain in.  I tried this (once the stain was dry and the shirt removed, of course), and the stain did not come out, though it was diluted.

So I tried following up with a wash in hot water with Charlie's Soap.  It still didn't come completely out.  (Contrary to what I was told, I think the boiling water actually set the stain.)

My 5-year-old daughter once got raspberries all down the front of her brand-new white shirt.  (Seriously, who takes their little kid to a church pot luck in a brand-new white shirt?  And then lets her eat raspberries?  Yeah, not too bright here.)  Once we got home, I got the shirt wet with cold water and rubbed a bar of real soap on it (as in, not store-bought "soap," which is really detergent.  For your own real soap, find a tutorial here).  Then I threw it in a cold wash with Charlie's Soap.  It came out beautifully white and still is (though terribly wrinkled at the moment)!

The moral of this story is:  Don't pit cherries or eat raspberries in a white shirt.  But if you do, rub the stain down with REAL soap, and wash in COLD water (preferably with Charlie's Soap).