Never ever rub a stain.

Yesterday evening I went out for dinner with some friends. The evening was going well, until the waiter spilled red wine all over my girlfriend.

The waiter was sorry and embarrassed, and my girlfriend was annoyed but the waiter almost made a bad thing worse.

After spilling the red wine, the waiter quickly ran to get club soda and a clean napkin to give my girlfriend, to “try” and clean up some of the spilled wine. My stomach turned just at the thought of that. The napkin wasn’t so much the problem, but the club soda, oh boy.

I looked at my girlfriend and told her not to use the club soda and to simply blot the red wine with the napkin. I had to explain that rubbing with the napkin would have not only embedded the wine into the fabric but that it could have caused fibre damage.

For the same reason that you don’t want to rub a stain with a napkin or paper towel, you do not want to use liquid of any kind. Using club soda could cause an unwanted chemical reaction and embed the stain in your garment.

The best thing is to do nothing other than blot gently and take your garment into the drycleaners so an expert can properly treat and remove the stains.