Remove Grass Stains With This Common Kitchen Ingredient

While seeing your little ones frolicking outside can be a true joy, trying to get grass stains out of their clothes is not. Especially their jeans! Stopping by your kitchen pantry before heading to the laundry room can make this task a whole lot easier. Sugar offers a natural solution for tackling stubborn grass stains. Spreading some over your stains before you toss them in the wash can help make your clothes look like they were never stained at all.

Grass stains are notoriously hard to get out of clothing. You can blame chlorophyll for that! Chlorophyll is what gives the grass its green color and acts as a dye. But grass also contains proteins, carotenoids, and xanthophylls, which help that green color to firmly bond to natural fabrics it comes into contact with.

Applying sugar and water to the stain will cause the chlorophyll to break up and release its grip on your fabric. "Sucrose hydrates well with water and causes the damaged cellular structure of the grass to break open even more and release cellular contents, including chlorophyll, to loosen. This causes the contents which create stains to break open from damaged plant cells responding to hydrated sucrose, making the stain easier to remove with washing," Plant Sciences Professor Dr. Kalidas Shetty, the founding director of the Global Institute of Food Security and International Agriculture at North Dakota State University, tells The Sugar Association.

All you'll need to make your sugar grass stain remover is sugar and water. Start by pouring 1/2 cup of sugar into a bowl. Pour in warm water and mix with your sugar until a thick paste forms. Spread the sugary paste over your grass stains, and let the mixture soak in for about an hour. Toss your grass-stained clothing into the washing machine. Once the wash cycle is done, you'll want to inspect your clothing to ensure the stain is completely gone. If you dry your clothes before the stain is gone, the heat will permanently set the stain. If you still see signs of a grass stain, reapply your sugar mixture and send your garment through the wash again. 

You can put your clothes in the dryer once the stain completely disappears. But make sure that the sugar is totally rinsed from your clothing; otherwise, you could end up with a stain even worse than the one you started with. This is because sugar can carmelize from the heat and create a residue that can be impossible to remove.