How to Get Red Wine Stains Out of a Chiffon Bridesmaids Dress:

So in true Wineaux fashion, my lovely afternoon at the Keeneland racetrack ended in my covering this brand new, beautiful Lulu’s maxi dress in wine! Yay! Another stain to conquer! Just fyi, this is a chiffon dress with a satin liner I had to rescue – in case the dress you have in dire straits is some other bridesmaids-type dress.

Punchline: totally rescued. Just keep calm, and read on. Your dress, too, can be saved.

So I didn’t get a good picture of the stains we stayed with since I was a little preoccupied with getting changed and then out to dinner after we got back. Just know that at some point we opened a door to go out on a veranda at the track and the wind caught my mother’s plastic wine glass and sprayed it across all of us. This thing was COVERED and my husband was completely convinced that this was a one-and-done wear.
 
 
 

Step 1: Start Slow

As with all wine stains, start with the least abrasive option first. If you catch it and it just happened, get a piece of ice and rub it in small circles around the spot alternating between blotting the moisture away with a paper towel and icing more. Sometimes this solves it, but even if not, it’s a solid pre-treatment that will set you up for success as soon as you’re ready to clean it.

If your stains are relatively fresh and you can shed the garment, soak it in ice cold water to see if they lift on their own. I let them dry for a few hours, so I added a half dollar amount of Woolite Extra Delicates Care Detergent and gently used the chiffon outer layer to work at the stains.

Because of the color and the whole thing being wet, I was pretty convinced that I got them all the first time…
 

 

… so I rinsed it a bunch of times until the bubbles stopped coming off and then hung it up in the sun to dry out.

 

 

As it dried, I did find a few spots where the heavier stains weren’t lifted completely. They were actually really hard to see until it dried completely and they didn’t photo at all, but they were definitely there. So I went back to my laundry room sink and proceeded with a little Shout Triple-Acting Stain Remover Spray and proceeded to scrub the stains I found using the chiffon as the abrasive scrubber to work at them with.

 

 

Step 2: If at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up and head back to the bottle just yet…

After that, I rinsed it again and hung it up to dry again. I actually did find a few more shots around the bottom of the skirt, so I treated it a third time veggie it was totally right. Unfortunately, this skirt is huge and flowy, so the stains around the bottom were hard to find. If you have a darker dress, I would recommend marking them with masking tape or painters tape do that you can remember where to treat. This was a whole-lotta dress for my tiny laundry room sink with is why it took so many tries to get them all.

 

 

Finally, I did get them all and my dress lives to get stained again at one of the billion weddings I have to attend this year.

Keep in mind, the Shout Triple-Acting Stain Remover Spray will also get grass, oil, blood etc. stains out of your dress as well.

 

 

So that’s how you rescue a formal chiffon dress from the red menace. As always: fear no Merlot, cry over no stain.

Don’t forget, if you have a stain I haven’t addressed yet, drop me a line. If you come up with something I haven’t stained, I probably owe you a bottle!

 

 

 

Wanna Learn to Get Red Wine Out of Other Things? Click the image to see other How-Tos!