I Tried 3 Ways to Remove Tomato Sauce Stains from Clothing, and the Winner Left No Trace

No matter how careful you are, tomato sauce always has a sneaky way of making it onto your favorite shirt. Even when you think you’ve managed to escape a pasta dinner or ketchup-heavy fast food meal without a single stain, you’ll inevitably find one later. And while it is possible to remove tomato sauce stains from clothes, taking on those greasy, orange spots can be a huge pain — and not every method works as well as you’d like it to. So I set out to find the very best one.

“Tomato sauce contains a combination of oils, acids, and pigments that bond quickly with fabric fibers, making removal challenging,” says Ross Pascale, CEO of Neeet House Cleaning. “The acidic nature of tomatoes can break down fabric fibers, while the oils create a barrier that repels cleaning agents.”

Even the pigment that makes tomatoes red, lycopene, is particularly difficult to remove. So if you’ve ever struggled with getting out tomato sauce stains, know that it is a tough stain to get rid of — especially when they set in.

I tested three different methods for getting tomato sauce stains out of clothes, pitting two internet-popular home remedies against a commercial product dedicated to removing messy food stains:

• Scrubbing with salt and baking soda.
• Scrubbing with dish soap and vinegar, then rubbing with an ice cube.
• Spritzing with Miss Mouth’s Messy Eater Stain Treater.

To test each method, I grabbed three of the same off-white cotton t-shirts and placed the same sized dollop of tomato sauce on each. I spread it a little then let the sauce sit for about 10 minutes before wiping off as much as I could.

The ratings: I used a rating scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest score and 5 being the highest. I factored in not only the overall effectiveness of each method, but also its relative ease and convenience.

Results: 3.5/5

Method: Mix equal parts salt and baking soda in a dish, and add just enough water to form a paste. After that, rub the paste into the stain, then launder as usual.

How it went: Salt and baking soda are two items that just about everyone has on hand at all times that I’ve used for stain removal before, so I was hopeful that this method — the simplest of the home remedies — would win out. Unfortunately, this was not the case. While it did lift a good amount of the tomato sauce stain, there was still a faint shadow left behind. I would default to this method if it was all I had on hand, but the other two methods performer better in my testing.

Results: 4/5

Method: To use Miss Mouth’s Messy Eater Stain Treater, wet the stain with plain water, spray the product onto the stain thoroughly, rub it gently with a clean cloth if needed, and launder as usual.

How it went: Up against our two home remedies was this viral stain removing spray marketed as “mom’s ultimate defense for powerful stain removal against stains caused by messy eaters.” It’s specifically designed for food stains — including ketchup and tomato stains, of course — and while I was skeptical, the positive reviews all over the web made me think it just might work.

Miss Mouth’s was easy to spritz onto the shirt and definitely faded the stain significantly, but didn’t quite get rid of it completely. The packaging instructs you to repeat the process on tough stains, which I’ll try next time. Ultimately, it’s a convenient little package free of harsh chemicals that I would reach for in a pinch (or leave in my car), but it’s another thing to purchase if you don’t already have it.

Results: 5/5

Method: Add a squirt of liquid dish soap to the stain, then rub it in and around with an ice cube. Next, blot the stain with a clean cloth damp with distilled white vinegar.

How it went: After rubbing the ice on the soapy stain, the tomato sauce stain had faded but not fully come out. When I blotted the stain with vinegar is when I really started to see the stain pick up. After throwing the shirt in the laundry, the stain was virtually invisible!

This method seemed unnecessarily complicated — and I wasn’t sure what impact the ice would have on the stain — but I’m glad I tried it. The grease-fighting combination made this the easy winner of our three methods.

While all three of the methods worked to some degree, there was one clear, stain-free winner that stuck out: dish soap, vinegar, and ice. The tomato sauce stain was no match for this winning combo, which was quite unexpected. I appreciate that this method only requires items you likely already have in your kitchen, and it was a little fun to rub the ice on the stain.

Miss Mouth’s Messy Eater Stain Treater landed squarely in second place, although it put up a good fight. Just a few spritzes got a good amount of the stain out, but didn’t quite get rid of all of it. It’s great to have for on-the-go, and was ultimately ranked one of Apartment Therapy’s favorite store-bought stain removers. I get the hype, and I’ll be sure to try it on other stains, or apply a second treatment next time.

I had high hopes for the other method using only household ingredients, baking soda and salt, which ended up being the least effective of the bunch. The abrasive and grease-fighting properties of this duo did fade the stain quite a bit, but compared to the other two, it wasn’t quite up to snuff.