Pre-treatment
Treating a mark before the main process, because the main process is usually the thing that would make it permanent.
In detail
Pre-treatment exists because most cleaning processes include a step that sets stains. A wash cycle heats; a dryer heats far more; a dishwasher heats and dries. Anything protein-based, and several dye-based marks, become permanent when heated, so the sequence has to deal with them before the heat arrives rather than relying on it. That is the whole argument for the step, and it explains its two rules. First, pre-treatment is cool: hot water applied to blood, milk, egg or gravy denatures the protein and locks it into the fibre, which is why the trade instruction for blood is cool water and why hot water on a blood stain is a claim this catalogue records as wrong. Second, it is not a substitute for the wash — a pre-treated garment still needs the full process, and a pre-treatment product left to dry on a fabric can itself become a mark. On soft furnishings the equivalent of pre-treatment is the carpet institute's shared opening: blot liquids, scrape semi-solids, break up solids and vacuum, all before any solution is applied. Every one of those is a step to stop the treatment making things worse, rather than a step that cleans.
What works
Pre-treatment is effective against Blood Supported
Why
- Pre-treatment is explained by Protein denaturation
- Pre-treatment is explained by The four variables
Sources for this page
Sources
Spot Solver: spot and spill removal procedures
The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) · Trade or professional body
Relied on for: That every procedure opens by blotting liquids, gently scraping semi-solids and breaking up and vacuuming solids before any solution is applied, and that acting quickly prevents a spill becoming a permanent stain. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — Sprint 5-10: fifteen entries, stain by stain. Sprint 30: enumerated at 296 from the publisher's own sitemap, 134 more read plus 'Unknown'. Sprint 38: 56 more, chosen against stains the catalogue lacked. 192 of 296 read. Supports the claim as stated.
The Woolmark Company · Trade or professional body
Relied on for: That prompt treatment before washing is the trade's instruction for stains on wool. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — Sprint 29 read all ten stain entries plus the general method. Earlier sprints had read the general method and two entries - oily stains and blood - out of ten. Supports a wider statement — our claim was widened. The register had read two of ten entries and treated the source as done. The red wine entry is the one that matters most: two accepted intents about red wine on a wool carpet had been partial for want of a fibre-specific procedure, and it was on this page throughout. Also new: the salt-first route for egg and milk, the bicarbonate route for black coffee, the do-not-let-it-dry rule for ink, and the instruction to tell a dry cleaner what has already been applied - the only handover instruction in the register.
Last reviewed by a person on .