How to Get Grass Stains Out of Jeans

Whether you live alone and like to garden or collect piles of laundry every time your kids play outside, you have almost certainly faced the dilemma of grass stains smeared across jeans! These bright smears seem to sink into denim and dye it a vivid shade of green. Fortunately, you can learn how to get grass stains out of jeans in a few simple steps!

One of the most popular ways to get grass stains out of jeans is to use a pre-wash soak in water and OxiClean. Popular home-remedy grass stain removal methods include vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, or white toothpaste. Using an enzyme-based laundry detergent to scrub the stain before washing can also work.

In this article, you will learn what makes grass stains difficult to remove. You will discover seven methods for getting grass stains out of jeans. Finally, you will find tips on how to handle grass-stained clothing in the laundry.

Do Grass Stains Come Out Of Jeans?

Grass stains come out of jeans with proper treatment, but they will not entirely fade if you put the stained jeans in the wash without using a stain removal technique.

Grass stains occur when the fabric of your jeans comes into contact with broken or crushed blades of grass. The damaged cells inside the leaf release chlorophyll and some proteins, basically the “juice” that flows through the blade of grass to keep it alive. Because of the proteins in the liquid, grass stains fall into the category of stains known as “enzymatic.”

Chlorophyll is a kind of pigment that provides nutrition to plants by helping them complete the process of photosynthesis. It matters to us because it has a vivid green color, and its color pigment interacts with certain types of fabric just like dye pigments!

Chlorophyll can discolor jeans easily because most denim contains 100% cotton. Just like grass, cotton comes from a plant and has similar cells. The good news is that cotton also has a sturdy, washable nature, which makes it easier to treat grass stains that have sunk into the denim fibers!

Other kinds of fabric react to grass stains in slightly different ways. Animal-based fabric like silk or wool can get bad grass stains, but you have to treat these fabrics delicately and may need to take these garments to a dry cleaner.

Synthetic fabrics like polyester will resist stains for much longer than denim as the plastic-based fibers in this cloth do not react as easily with chlorophyll. That said, if your polyester clothes d pick up a green spot from grass, you may find it difficult to remove!

So, the bottom line is that jeans get stubborn grass stains, but you can also use powerful methods to wash the green spot out without damaging the denim!

How to Get Grass Stains Out of Jeans: 7 Methods

You can get grass stains out of jeans using pretreatments such as soaking in vinegar or a commercial stain remover. You can also try home remedies such as using certain kinds of white toothpaste to treat the green spot or mixing up a bubbling paste of vinegar and baking soda to lift the green color out of your jeans!

1. Vinegar

If you have distilled white vinegar in a kitchen cupboard, one of the simplest ways to remove a grass stain is to treat it with this powerful home remedy! Vinegar contains acetic acid, which can effectively dissolve the chlorophyll and proteins in the grass, allowing the color particle to rinse away.

1. Arrange the jeans so that a clean rag rests beneath the stained area. This will prevent the green pigment from leaking away onto another part of the jeans.
2. Mix one cup of distilled white vinegar and one cup of cold water in a clean bowl.
3. Dip a new spine or clean white rag into this solution.
4. Use the sopping wet sponge to blot at the spot until you have thoroughly soaked the denim.
5. Let the wet denim sit for half an hour.
6. Rinse out your sponge, dip it in the vinegar solution again, and blot at the stain again. This time, you should see green coming off onto the sponge!
7. Keep rinsing and blotting until most of the stain is gone.
8. Rinse the stain under running water, holding the denim so the water goes straight through it to flush away lingering chlorophyll particles.
9. Finally, put the jeans in the wash by themselves with your regular laundry detergent.

2. Vinegar and Baking Soda

For stubborn, set-in grass stains, you can try using a special blend, including vinegar and baking soda. This treatment can effectively lift grass stains out of jeans and even out of synthetic materials like polyester.

1. First, create a paste by mixing three tablespoons of baking soda and two tablespoons of water in a disposable cup.
2. Spread this all over the stain, working it into the denim with your fingers or a clean, damp sponge.
3. Let the paste sit on the jeans until it turns dry and crumbly. This usually takes at least an hour.
4. In a separate cup, measure together a cup of warm water, a half cup of distilled white vinegar, and one tablespoon of Dawn dish soap. Stir this up gently.
5. Use a clean sponge dipped in the vinegar solution to scrub the dried baking soda paste. You should see some foaming up, and the foam will turn green as you keep scrubbing!
6. Rinse the stain under cool running water to remove all the foam and see if the green spot remains.

3. Hydrogen Peroxide

Another easy homemade grass stain remover you can make yourself uses hydrogen peroxide and dish soap. Hydrogen peroxide is one of the main ingredients in colorfast bleaches like OxiClean, and it often works well on colorful stains.

1. Mix half a cup of hydrogen peroxide with half a cup of water in a clean spray bottle. Shake up the bottle to combine the two ingredients.
2. Spritz the stained area well so that it feels damp to the touch.
3. Let the peroxide sit and do its work for half an hour.
4. If the green stain does not appear faded, you may need to measure a cup of hydrogen peroxide into a bucket of water and soak the jeans for one to three hours. If the stain does look faded, skip this step!
5. Wash the jeans by themselves using your regular laundry detergent, but hang them up to air dry instead of placing them in the dryer.

4. White Toothpaste

Many brands of white, non-gel toothpaste can also bleach grass stains out of jeans. You can also try this method if you have grass smears on the white part of your tennis shoes!

Why does this work? Well, some types of white toothpaste contain whitening agents, such as menthol. You should check the ingredients on your toothpaste before you try this method.

Simply apply a generous dab of toothpaste, work it into the denim with your fingers or a clean toothbrush, and let it sit for half an hour. Then rinse the paste, and see if you have successfully removed the stain!

5. OxiClean

One of the most effective ways to remove grass stains from jeans is to use oxygen bleach, such as OxiClean. This kind of bleach breaks down the green grass spot because of a chemical interaction between sodium percarbonate and sodium carbonate. This product can get many tough stains out of clothing, and it is also usually safe to use on colorful clothes like your blue jeans, though you may want to test a droplet on a hidden side seam first to make sure!

1. For fresh grass stains, gently brush away any dirt, leaves, or blobs of mushed grass before beginning this method.
2. Fill a clean bucket two-thirds full of cool water. Measure the amount of OxiClean recommended on the package into the water. This depends on whether you use the powdered type or the liquid type, but typically, you will use about one scoop or ¼ cup of the product.
3. If using powered bleach, make sure it dissolves in the water by stirring it up.
4. Next, gently lower your jeans into the solution, squish them down to make sure they have completely submerged in the water, and then let them sit for 6 hours.
5. Carry the whole bucket to your washing machine to avoid dripping everywhere. Place the wet jeans in the washer, and run a normal wash cycle using cold water and regular detergent.
6. Check the jeans to see if any green discolorations from the grass remain. Hang the jeans up to air dry, just in case!

6. Rubbing Alcohol

Rubbing alcohol acts as a solvent to dissolve and lift away a grass stain, but in some cases, it can also take some of the dye out of your blue jeans. You need to perform a spot test before trying this technique! On the other hand, it does work well to get the green splotch out of your denim!

1. Arrange your jeans with a clean rag folded up behind the stained section.
2. Pour rubbing alcohol onto the green part of the denim until it is soaked.
3. Let this sit until it dries, which should take less than an hour.
4. Apply about ½ a teaspoon of laundry detergent to the green spot. Scrub this into the stain with a damp, clean toothbrush.
5. Let the soap-and-alcohol foam sit for ten more minutes.
6. Finally, rinse that part of the jeans under cool running water, and check to see if you removed the green coloring!

7. Without Washing

The best way to get a grass stain out of jeans without washing them is to use a commercial stain remover and then blot or rinse the area with water.

Most enzyme-based stain removers should work on a grass stain.

• Shout Gel products can work wonders on grass stains in your jeans. You can also try this for grass-stained shoes and many other types of clothes! Make sure you rinse the gel out after letting it sit on the stain for as long as the package recommends.
• Goo-Gone spray can also get grass stains out of cloth. Make sure yous pot test this on a hidden section of your jeans first, though!
• OxiClean Max Force stain remover can work miracles on grass stain in anything. Ideally, you should wash the jeans after this, but you can get away with rinsing the stain under cool water in a pinch.

Does Grass Permanently Stain Jeans?

Grass can permanently stain jeans if you do not catch the stain quickly enough. In most cases, you can remove all of the green by promptly treating the green spot with a homemade remedy like a vinegar soak or a commercial enzyme-based stain remover like Shout Gel.

Another super effective way to remove any fresh grass or outdoor stain from your jeans is to use a soak in water and oxygen bleach such as OxiClean.

But even if you don’t notice the stain right away, you can often get out a dried grass stain by using a bit more elbow grease!

How Do You Get Dried Grass Stains Out of Jeans?

The best way to get dried grass stains out of jeans is to try the vinegar and baking soda method described earlier in this article. In some cases, you may also find it possible to remove set-in grass stains using a bleach soak.

Using enzyme-based laundry detergent as a follow-up to the stain removal will also help pry out any lingering flecks of the grass stain.

Whatever method you choose, you will likely need to apply the treatment several times. You may also need to find a clean, soft brush and scrub the product thoroughly into the stain to work the green out of the denim!

Do You Wash Grass Stains in Hot or Cold Water?

You should always wash grass stained-clothing like jeans in cold water. Hot water can bake the proteins inside the chlorophyll, making the stain set into the fabric, just like green fabric dye!

While it’s not impossible to get a grass stain out of your jeans after washing them in hot water or even after putting the jeans in the dryer, it does get much more difficult.

It’s a good idea to wash your jeans in cold water anyway. This removes some of the wear and tear from the wash process and helps the dye in your jeans stay vivid and fresh. Plus, your jeans will not shrink as much if you wash them in cold water!

Best Detergent For Grass Stains?

The best detergent for grass stains is an enzyme-based detergent that can break up the proteins in the stain and remove them from the fabric. Because detergent becomes extremely diluted in the washing machine, you should always apply a dab of the detergent directly to the stain before washing the garment.

Check out this brief guide to some of the best detergents for grass stains in jeans:

• Tide Plus Ultra Stain Release has the ingredients of a strong Tide detergent, as well as ingredients formulated to fight stubborn stains. Tide has a great reputation as a stain-removing detergent and is recommended by several big-name washing machine brands and Consumer Reports!
• Persil ProClean Stain Fighter is another big-name detergent brand that upped its game to add special stain-fighting ingredients to this new type of detergent. This product is enzyme-based, which can specifically target food and grass stains with great efficiency!
• No products found. works almost as well as the better-known OxiClean bleach to remove stains from clothes! This product does work best in HD washers, but it has the great benefit of treating stains while remaining color-safe for your jeans and bight clothing!

Conclusion

You can get grass stains out of jeans by using several effective home remedies, like soaking in white vinegar or scrubbing with baking soda and vinegar. You can also use quick hacks like applying white toothpaste or spritzing with hydrogen peroxide. Oxygen bleach products will almost always get stubborn grass stains out of jeans, though you will need to soak the jeans for at least six hours in most cases.

Grass stains left untreated in denim can set in and turn into permanent green stains. You can still sometimes remove the old stains if you try a stain removal method several times and use a toothbrush to scrub deep into the fibers of the fabric. You can also get new grass stains out of jeans by applying laundry detergent to the stain before washing, though you must make sure you use an enzyme-based detergent.