Halloween is fast approaching and after that, we have even more food-centric holidays. From trick-or-treat hauls to Santa’s cookies, chocolate is about to be everywhere for a while—but it doesn’t need to be in your clothes or on your carpet. Stains don’t have to be part of your life, even though what makes chocolate so good is also what makes it so bad: It’s so damn gooey.
Here’s how to get chocolate out of your fabrics: Bear in mind that the first step for all of these is using a butter knife to remove any solid chocolate bits from the soiled area.
Get chocolate out of clothes
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As we’ve told you before, to get chocolate out of regular clothing, you should saturate the stain completely with Shout spray, then rub the wet section of fabric against itself to make sure the spray is really worked in. Next, hold the section tight under cold, running water to flush the stain, periodically rubbing it against itself under the water.
Molly Maid suggests turning your affected item inside out and running cold water on the back of the stained part to loosen the stain, then lathering the stain with a stain remover, detergent, or even a little dish soap before soaking it in cold water for at least 30 minutes. You might have to redo the lathering and soaking more than once to see results, but eventually, you should be able to finish up by tossing the garment in the washing machine. Don’t put it in the dryer unless the stain is completely gone.
Molly Maid also recommends setting older stains with heavy cream and letting it soak in for half an hour. The fat in the cream helps lift the fatty part of the chocolate from the fabric.
How to get chocolate out of carpet
In the event your stain is on carpet, you can’t exactly turn the fabric inside out like you would a shirt, so to loosen the residue, you’ll need to try something else. The Spruce recommends damping a clean cloth with water and a dot of dish soap, then blotting the stained area from outside to inside. Try not to blot anywhere that doesn’t have chocolate on it to avoid spreading the stain around, and leave the soap on for at least five minutes.
Then, grab a clean cloth, wet it with water, and blot the soap off until it’s all gone. Air dry the area, then vacuum your dry carpet to get your fibers perky again.
Per Tidy Life, it’s important you only use cold water here and don’t scrub at your carpet, especially not too hard. If the stain isn’t too bad, you can also use rubbing alcohol in place of dish soap to pull the stain out.
How to get chocolate out of upholstery
What fun is having chocolate around if you can’t snack on it while you kick back and watch TV? Your couch may be collateral damage here, but the stain should still be removable. Upholstery is a different beast than clothing or carpet because it’s thick and usually covering some kind of padding, so your approach here will be a little different than those above.
According to Tina Maids, you should mix one cup of warm water with a teaspoon of detergent and pour it directly onto the stain. Again, try to avoid letting it spread to untainted areas. Then, wipe from the outside of the stain in toward the middle, but move in the direction of the fiber’s grain. Put some paper towels over the wet spot and place something heavy, like a book, on top for at least 10 minutes. When you remove the paper towels, you can do the detergent method again if the stain is still present. Once it’s gone, you’ll need to repeat the paper towel process.