A delicate balance of skills

Stain removal requires a delicate balance of knowledge and skills making use of tools, chemicals, time, having a regard to safety and most important of all, method.

Training has to cover the use of both industry-standard raw chemicals and proprietary kits. It goes without saying that proprietary kits will contain standard raw chemicals, but with perhaps slight chemical and formulation changes or additives to make them safe, and perhaps more effective in specific areas of stain release and stain suspension.

When teaching stain removal, one has to be careful not to condemn any single proprietary kit for the wrong reasons. At the Parrisianne Guild Courses, we find that each and every kit has both strong and weak areas of activity. The quality of the product has to be judged on two factors, its ability to remove the unwanted staining and also on its ability to avoid damage to the garment, fibre or dyes.

The first lessons that a student will learn on a course will be to “know your chemical and know when to stop”. This is not necessarily because further treatment is ineffective but to prevent damage to the colour or the fabric being treated. Judgment of the stain removal kit is therefore often in consideration that while it may not have removed this stain, it did not spoil the garment in the attempt.

It is unfortunately true that if the garment is damaged by stain removal treatments by a textile cleaner and the owner is not informed that this would be part of the possible results, the owner is quite within their rights to make claim against the textile cleaner for the damages caused. This does not take into consideration the possibility that the staining may well have ruined the garment, anyway. The garment and damage will end up being the responsibility of the textile cleaner.

It is well worth remembering that while the owner’s stains remains on the garment and the garment is in its original received condition (although we would hope perhaps a little cleaner) the most a complaint would cost the drycleaner is the price on the cleaning ticket.

If proprietary products have a “built-in” fabric or colour protection factor, and most have, it means that the product is perhaps less effective as a stain remover but more effective in terms of safety. Even the old school of stain removers secretly mixed and diluted chemicals and lubricants together in order to remove stains, prevent it spreading or fixing.

Properties

It is important to know the properties of chemicals and how they work. There are one or two chemicals that work as a pure chemical action. Acid is one of them. Not all acids are the corrosive skin-burning, concrete-eating substance that immediately comes to mind. Some acids are mild and are used in food to add flavour.

Others are in quite a different category. The rust remover hydrofluoric acid is a strong acid used to remove ironmould (rust). It is very dangerous to some dyes, fibres, glass and our skin, even when diluted in water to 2% volume.

It is vital, therefore for textile cleaners to a have knowledge of chemicals, so that after allowing the chemical to do its job, they are able to neutralise the chemical action before unwanted damage occurs. In this example, if dilution was to go lower in order to induce more safety, the product simply will not work.

Weak acids such as acetic acid can reverse colour changes induced by using alkalis. This also works in reverse. This and other chemical knowledge plays an important part in successful stain treatment.

When treating stains it is important to employ method and this is a point that any training course on the subject must make. As an example, proprietary, tea and coffee stain-removers do not always remove many stains which are loosely described by these terms. This is because the description tea or coffee does not take into account the fact that the stain also contains milk. Milk is a protein that requires a completely separate treatment, prior to attempting to remove the tea or coffee. If you did not proceed this way then in the attempt to remove the tea /coffee, the protein will probably be set fast and will not be removed. To avoid this kind of problem one requires method.

As another instance of the importance of method, if the steam gun is used to flush out released ball-point ink pigment on cellulose fibre, there is a risk is that the coloured pigment will impregnate the fibre as a dye and cannot then be removed without damaging the fibre.

From these examples, it will be seen that both chemical knowledge and method are a vital part of successful stain removing and unfortunately, these do not come bottled.

The range of possible staining substances is vast, as is the range of different dyes and materials that this staining could be on.

Every staining problem requires a scientific approach in order to breakdown the possibility of removal without damage. Within this massive range and possible variations, each and every manufactured pre-mixed product will have an area of peak performance and an area of weak performance. That area of cover will be different for every different brand. It is our view that every textile cleaner should have at least three differently manufactured kits to hand, in order to have reasonable chance of stain removal.

Decanting

Safety plays an important part in teaching stain removal. This involves safety in handling chemicals, understanding container markings and hazard signs, wearing correct protection and marking containers to show their contents hazards and uses before and after decanting. Safety must be regarded in storing chemicals to be used at the workplace and longer term, and in ensuring correct working ventilation. Safety must also be considered in respect of fabric and dyes and its light reflection characteristics etc.

Data sheets and labels that are attached to products must include information and advice in respect to potential hazards. It is therefore vitally important that the marking and label materials used are not destroyed or degraded by spillage or splashing of the contents.

Finally, work spaces and work tops must be kept clean so that the textile cleaner, having cleared every other hurdle, avoids putting stains on garments.