From white vinegar and baking soda to lemon juice and dish soap, there are a myriad of household cleaning tips and tricks on the internet to make cleaning easier – especially on our carpets, where stains tend to set in rapidly. After spilling tomato sauce on my carpet, I decided to try out a common household item that Queen of Clean Lynsey Crombie and a few other cleaners have raved about – shaving foam.
Despite Lynsey claiming that shaving foam removes “any stains”, using this bathroom item on the carpet stain sounded bizarre, and I didn’t have high hopes of it working. However, I have tried using shaving foam on stained grout in the past, and along with a little scrubbing, it worked quite well. As soon as I started to rub the shaving foam into the carpet stain, I noticed the red mark start to vanish. I then used shaving foam on another spill, and that too disappeared.
As soon as I spilt the sauce, I tried to soak up as much of it as I could with a paper towel first before going in with the shaving foam. After doing so, I noticed that the stain quickly began to dry.
I then grabbed some shaving foam and a microfibre cloth – I used a cheap white shaving foam. Any white shaving foam is fine to use, just make sure not to use coloured shaving creams or gels as they can cause discolouration, particularly on light-coloured carpets.
I started by applying a small amount of shaving foam to the stain and rubbing it in. As soon as I started working the foamy substance into half of the stain, that half began to lighten and slightly disappear, but not fully.
As Lynsey recommends leaving the shaving foam to sit for 10 minutes to give the product an adequate amount of time to soak into the stain and break down the particles, that’s what I did to try to remove the entire stain.
Once the time was up, I switched between scrubbing and blotting the stain, and the results were amazing. The red stains had completely gone, and the shaving foam left behind a nice scent.
I also tested this out after spilling a drink on the carpet, and the shaving foam got to work faster this time. I was able to remove the stain in under three minutes with a little scrubbing. There was no need to leave the shaving foam to sit, as the stain was water-based.
Shaving foam works well thanks to its ingredients, designed to help soften facial hair and containing a light abrasive to help break up knots and tangles and remove dead skin. It’s these ingredients, called surfactants, that break down the particles, causing the stain.
The foam texture also allows the substance to cling to the stain, keeping the cleaning agent in contact with the stain for longer to get better results.
While my first thought with carpet stains would usually be to grab a specialised stain remover that typically retails for £3 to £8 in supermarkets, I think I’ll be ditching them for a £1 can of shaving foam from now on.