Washing Stains Out of Prom or Evening Gowns

Over the years, I have had many opporotunities to wear formal gowns. I have also had them get stains on them. 

At first, when I would get a stain on one, I would take it to the dry cleaner and almost without fail, they couldn't get the stain out and the garment was ruined. It may have been a bit lighter but it never was gone. 

I would have to pay a large fee for me to "try" to get the item clean only to have it be stained still and to be ruined. 

I have had the same problem with carpet cleaning in the past. I would pay lots of money and have them come only to have the same stains there after they left. They would tell me they were permanent and they couldn't get them out. 

I KNEW I could get them out with some scrubbing as I have gotten grass, blueberry juice, red paint, red popsicle, rust and mud out of my carpet. For some reason, the carpet men can't see to do the same. 

After having several dresses ruined and having to "pay" someone to tell me they couldn't get the stain out, I decided to try cleaning them myself. I use Zout for almost everything. It is what got most of the stains out from my carpet so I figured I would try it on my evening wear. 

I squirt a little on my fingers and then use my fingers to scrub the spot on the garment. I usually use cold water just to not "set" the stain. I scrub the fabric together some and use my fingernail on stubborn stains. 

It usually works and I rinse the garment carefully and then hang it to dry. With satin and silk, you have to wash the entire section or the whole garment so you don't get water lines when it dries. Also, I like to get it to dry quickly and use a fan to dry it sometimes. 


This beautiful dress was at a second hand store. Someone had spilled coke or something on one half and cream from an eclair on the other side. The darker stain almost looked like furniture polish. I figured if we couldn't get the stain off, we could cut up the dress and make it a shorter dress. 

The dress was $8 due to the stains. I took it home, washed it with the zout and within an hour, the entire dress was clean with no trace of the stains. I hung it on a plastic hanger and put it in front of our fan to dry quickly. 

You can see that in the above picture, it is still wet. It took about an hour and a half to dry. There were no water marks and no trace of the stains of any kind. If you don't rinse them well, sometimes you can get a stain from the soap you use to clean the item. 

Princess was very excited that the stains came out because she likes the dress long and I really didn't want to try and shorten the dress as I love the flowers all the way down the front. 

I will show you how I added shoulders and sleeves later and still want to post about the blinds but I'm still not feeling my best and trying to keep up with everything going on this week.