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Most women know that stubborn mascara can be a pain to remove. It usually takes a pretty powerful makeup remover and a lot of elbow grease to scrub mascara off your lashes. If you can barely remove mascara from your face, you would think a big, greasy mascara smear would be a death sentence for your favorite top. Luckily, there’s an easy trick to reviving mascara-stained fabrics. The best part? The secret ingredient is probably hiding under your kitchen sink.
Without getting too scientific, mascara consists mainly of pigment, wax and oil. Since mascara is grease-based, all you need is a grease-fighting soap like Dawn or Palmolive (even Pine Sol will work).
Dab a little bit of dish soap on to the mascara stain.
Rub the dish soap into the stain and scrub under warm water. This should get most of the stain out of the fabric.
To make sure the stain is completely removed, throw the garment into the washing machine. If you want to be extra cautious, you can treat the spot with a stain-removing spray.
Be sure the stain is completely removed before putting the garment into the dryer (drying can cause the stain to set). The mascara should come off with this technique and your clothing should be as good as new!
For more clothing hacks, check out how to iron clothing without an iron and how to treat oil stains.
