Tools

Three tools for the three questions that come up before you touch a stain: what method this stain needs on this surface, what the garment's label will let you do to it, and whether the two things under your sink are safe in the same bowl.

All three run entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, there is no account, and they work with the tab open and the connection dropped — which matters, because the moment you need them you are usually standing over the spill with wet hands rather than sitting down to research it.

Which one do you need?

Start with the Stain Solver if you know what spilled and what it landed on. It is a lookup rather than an algorithm: every pair it returns is a guide someone wrote for that specific combination, because the correct method is decided by both halves at once. Cold water is right for blood on cotton and wrong for cooking oil on the same shirt, and no general-purpose advice can hold both of those at the same time.

Go to the care-symbol decoder when the item is a garment and you have not decided how aggressive to be yet. The tag tells you what the fabric will survive, which is a different question from what the stain needs, and it is the one that wins when they disagree — a lifted stain on a felted wool jumper is not a result.

Use the cleaner recipes and mixing checker before combining anything. The recipes give real ratios and the order to add things in; the checker exists for the narrower and more serious question of whether two products can share a container at all. Bleach with ammonia gives off chloramine gas and bleach with an acid gives off chlorine — including with vinegar, and including with a good many bathroom cleaners whose labels do not lead with the word acid.

None of the three replaces the label on a product or a garment. Where a tool here and a manufacturer's instruction disagree, follow the manufacturer — they know what is actually in the bottle.