The ONE thing every red wine drinker must have - at all times!
the ONE thing every red wine drinker MUST have! Image via Flickr
This is not a sexy post. I jokingly tell everyone, you can dress me up but you can't take me out. I have a problem that many other Southpaws share. I can be a bit of a klutz at times. I drop things, spill things, trip over things and bump into them as well. I've been known to tip over a glass of wine or two. Just recently I was at a press dinner with a few friends where the table was crowded with too much food, not to mention all of our wine glasses as well as all the various bottles we were sampling from. As I reached over to get something off of a plate that was right in front of me my left hand accidentally knocked over a glass of red wine. It was a full glass and it was mine. A good bit landed on the dress of the woman sitting next to me. Naturally, as you can imagine, I was horrified. I offered to pay her dry cleaning bill but she told me not to worry about it and declined my offer.
Later that night, after I had gotten home I noticed that the wine had spilled all over one of my favorite bags, a Jonathan Adler beauty, I'd picked up at the end of the summer last year. There were red splashes all over the bag which is metal, cotton and patent leather. I brought the bag to the dry cleaners and they were scared to take the bag off my hands for fear they'd do more damage. More damage?!?! I had already completely ruined one side of it. They offered to send it out elsewhere. Several days later they called me back to tell me that the stains could not be removed. I'd come pick up the bag... at some point.
A couple of weeks later I received an email from someone at Stain RX asking if I would like to sample their stain removal kit that was specifically designed for those hard to treat stains such as red wine. They had me at red wine. Normally I decline free samples and product reviews but I had the bag that was in dire need of help. So I replied and asked for samples to be sent. Another couple of weeks later I retrieved the bag. The stains had now been set as it had been about a month since the incident.
A bit skeptical and a bit hopeful I began to work on the stains. I wish I had a before picture and am kicking myself that I don't! First I tried one of the wipes that was suggested. The wipes were not effective at all. Then I went ahead with the bottle of solution that I applied initially with a cotton ball, then with a Q-tip, then I just slowly poured the liquid over the surface of the bag. As you can see below the bag has a deep weave, and the wine was pretty well absorbed into those deep grooves. I noticed that with some scrubbing the bag was indeed fading. I had to run out to a meeting for a couple of hours and when I returned I noticed the spots were only minimally visible. I decided to work on it some more and soon the red wine stains were gone, but there was a stain from the removal liquid itself. I took a piece of paper toweling, ran it under the sink and scrubbed the bag some more with only the water and decided to leave it alone and let it dry for a couple of hours. My bag was salvaged!
And at the risk of sounding completely cheesy I give StainRX my full endorsement, or 5 out of 5 glasses of Cabernet! In all seriousness, if you drink red wine or serve red wine in your home, this is absolutely something you will want to have on hand.
the 1 thing every red wine drinker must have. Here is the bag where the red wine sat for a month. After the first treatment the red wine has faded considerably. As you can see the weave is pretty deep.
the 1 thing every red wine drinker should have! As you can see in the above image the red wine is now almost fully gone. The stains that you see are from the StainRX liquid. A wet paper towel then removed those stains.
the 1 thing you must have if you are a red wine drinker! The stain you see above is simply residual wetness from the water and StainRX solution. Eventually the bag dried completely.
The 1 thing every red wine drinker should have! As you can see in the above photo, the wine, solution and water marks have all gone away!
The 1 thing every red wine drinker should have! StainRX.