How to Get Flour Out of Clothes (and NOT Make a Sticky Mess)
Do you enjoy baking? If yes, you must have at some point found yourself in a hilarious made-for-tv-movie situation where you’ve managed to spill an unreasonable amount of flour on your face, clothes and the floor.
In the movies, they don’t show you the clean up process. In real life, cleaning flour off clothes can be quite a task – but it’s not impossible!
Getting flour out of your clothes depends on the kind of predicament you’ve gotten yourself in. But either way, some cold water, patience and a bit of handwork should get your clothes back into good shape.
How to Get Dry Flour Out of Clothes
You might be tempted to immediately throw your flour-covered shirt straight into the washer and dryer.
But take a step away from the machines, because when water meets flour, you’re going to get a starchy mess that becomes nearly impossible to get out of clothes. After all, that’s how glue is made!
Starch is great for baking, but not what we’re looking for in our laundry.
Instead, what you’re going to do is a bit of prep:
- Before you get your clothes into the wash, you want to make sure you’ve removed all the excess dry flour. You can do this by shaking it out or (if you wanna have some fun) smacking it against a surface.
- Rinse the clothes by hand with cold water until the water runs clear.
- Wash and dry as normal (laundry detergent and all), but preferably separate from your regular laundry in case there is any leftover flour that could lead to a mess in your washer.
How to Get Wet Flour Out of Clothes
Now we get to the difficult part.
You’ll see a lot of warnings about getting wet flour onto your clothes. This is because you’ll end up with a sticky mess that will quickly harden and become one with your favorite shirt or towel.
(Or the most likely place for it to land on – a tablecloth.)
But luckily, there are a few tricks you can try before giving up all hope…
- The first thing you’re going to do is take your flour coated clothes and soak them in a tub of lukewarm water. Then, you wait. If luck is on your side, the water should slowly dissolve the flour into looser bits and they’ll peel off on their own.
- For any leftover residue, it should become soft enough to scrape off.
- If it’s really bad (read: there are caked layers of dough that are too stubborn to scrape off), pour a few drops of your regular fabric softener.
- Once you’ve gotten off as much gunk as possible, wash as normal but without adding any other clothes. (You don’t want to contaminate any other favorites!)
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you remove dough from clothes?
Similar to flour, if the dough gets into your clothes, it can quickly become hard and tough to remove. You’ll want to soak your clothes in cold water (not hot, because that can make the mixture even messier).
After about 10 minutes or so, the dough should become soft enough for you to remove until your clothes are clean enough to toss in the washer.
How do I get flour out of clothes without washing?
This is a tough one, because you can’t guarantee you’ll get your clothes truly clean without a good wash. That being said, if you’re in a rush, a quick fix is to get your vacuum and use the hose to suck up all the flour.
How do I get flour out of carpet?
Getting flour out of your carpet requires the support of your trusty vacuum cleaner. You’ll want to vacuum the carpet until you remove all the flour residue.
There is likely to be some leftover that you can’t see. So once you’ve gotten most of it taken care of, you’ll want to give your carpet a regular cleaning as well.
And while you’re at it, a nice addition to this cleaning routine would be to empty your vacuum first, because (fun fact) that flour you just sucked up can actually be composted! So you can clean up your home and the environment in one go.
