Banish Blood Stains From Your Mattress With A Common Kitchen Ingredient

When blood seeps through your sheets and onto your mattress, you might start panicking about how to remove the stain before it completely sets in. Luckily, you can run to your kitchen cabinets to grab a bottle of white vinegar, and you'll be able to eliminate the blood stain in no time. Vinegar is a versatile cleaning tool that is inexpensive and effective for stain removal and other household jobs. Additionally, this natural cleanser has some antibacterial and disinfectant properties, ensuring that your mattress will be clean as well as stain-free once the blood is gone.

For this stain removal method, you'll only need water and white vinegar, which you probably already have on hand, making this a convenient and easy way to get stains out of your mattress. While using vinegar to get rid of stains is simple, you'll need to be careful not to get too much liquid on your mattress. This can make it difficult to dry and may create mildew and mold growth over time if the clean mattress isn't dried.

Vinegar is an acidic substance, which is why it can help to lift various types of stains from fabric, including your mattress. The acetic acid within the natural cleanser is responsible for the majority of its cleaning and disinfecting properties. The white vinegar that you can find in grocery stores generally is made of 5% acetic acid, and though this may not seem like a lot, it is plenty for most cleaning projects. The acetic acid that vinegar contains will give the molecules in the blood stain a chemical charge, which will then cause them to gravitate towards water. So once you add water to the mix, the blood will lift from your mattress.

This cleaning method is rather safe, since regular white vinegar is not considered to be toxic. The smell of the vinegar, which also comes from the acetic acid, may be present in the room for a while after cleaning, but this can be remedied with fans to help the liquid evaporate faster.

First, if the blood is fresh, you'll want to get as much of the liquid off the mattress before adding any cleansers. Take a cloth dampened with cold water (hot water can exacerbate blood stains) and gently blot the affected area. Try using a white rag so you can see if the blood is coming off, and make sure not to rub the stain, as this could spread it further or push it more deeply into the fabric of your mattress. Now, fill a spray bottle with equal parts vinegar and water and spritz it over the stain. If you don't have a spray bottle readily available, mix equal parts of your natural cleaner with water. Place a rag into the solution, wring it out, and carefully dab the stain. For particularly difficult stains, you might try putting a little bit of straight vinegar directly onto the area, rather than diluting it and dabbing it on or spraying it. 

Leave the vinegar solution on your mattress for 10 minutes, though you may need to give it more time if the stain has set. If there's a persistent vinegar smell, dab the area again with a damp cloth. You may also blot your mattress with a dry cloth to try to remove excess liquid. Once you've removed the blood stains from your mattress, allow it to dry fully before making the bed again.