How to remove oily road water stains

Whether you get spots of oily water from drops of car grease, spilled motor oil or even splashes from water on the side of the road, it’s important to treat oil-based or greasy stains immediately. Get oil or grease on your hands or your clothes and it can spread across the rest of the house onto the upholstery or the carpet. When oil or grease stains get into the fabric, they can be broken down by lipase enzymes and removed by using surfactants. Ariel uses a non-ionic surfactant that goes deep into the fibre level to remove greasy stains from your garment. While your favourites might seem ruined after getting oily water on it, let Ariel show you how to get oil out of clothes. Watch our step by step guide on how to remove oil stains from clothes, or read the instructions below.

riding a bicycle

For oil-based stains on washable fabrics

  1. Pretreat new and old spots with a commercial prewash spot remover. If you don’t have one of those products, apply liquid laundry detergent (or a paste made from granular detergent mixed with water) directly to the spot. Work the detergent into the spot.

  2. Immediately after pretreatment, wash the item in the washing machine in hot water (if that is safe for the fabric and colors).

  3. Before drying the fabric, inspect it. If the spot is still evident, repeat the process until it is gone.

How to remove oil stains caused by road water

  • 1

    Pour

    For effective oily water stain removal, pour Ariel Original Washing Liquid directly onto the oil stain to cover it completely. You can either pour from the bottle or the cap.

    Pouring detergent
  • 2

    Pre-treat

    Use the pre-treat cap to apply the washing liquid, the flexible fins of the cap can help spread the washing detergent over the surface of the oily water stain, and help the washing liquid better penetrate the garment’s fibres to help remove oil stains.

    Ariel Detergent
  • 3

    Load

    Without rinsing off the washing liquid, place the garment into the washing machine with the rest of the load. Leaving the washing detergent on the stain will help give your wash a boost and help you with how to get oil stains out of clothes.

    Loading white laundry
  • 4

    Dose

    You can also use the cap as a dosing device. Just fill it up with the correct dose of washing detergent and place it directly into your washing machine drum on top of your dirty laundry.

    Dosing cup
  • 5

    Wash

    Wash on your usual cycle on the hottest temperature as indicated by the fabric care label.

    Setting up washing machine
  • 6

    Unload

    When the cycle is complete, unload the garments immediately.

    unloading laundry

Effective stain removal on a variety of stains

Oil stains might be hard to remove, but they are not the only tough stains out there. Other laundry challenges, such as getting grease out of clothes or removing other oil stains such as motor oil stains can also cause stain removal problems. Let Ariel help you remove tough stains with our laundry tips and advice, so you can get even the most stubborn stains out of your favourite clothes.