Why Chalk Could Be Extremely Useful In Your Kitchen

Our focus is generally more on cooking food than on the laundry that can result from kitchen time, but the fact is that grease is a very real negative side effect of making delicious meals. Grease, which might be the secret ingredient for the best fried chicken, is terrible for the clothes we wear. Who hasn't accidentally ruined a favorite wearable due to an errant splatter from a hot pan, a salad dressing spill, or some olive oil drippage while dipping crusty bread? We've covered how to clean grease out of plastic containers with a paper towel trick, but, for clothing-related grease issues in your kitchen, you want chalk. Plain, white, sidewalk chalk, to be exact.

Chalk, as it turns out, is made of calcium carbonate. This material is fun to doodle with on sidewalks, but it's also incredibly absorbent ... a real boon when it comes to soaking up oily patches on fabric. Simply rub some white chalk over your stain (and it must be white chalk; otherwise the coloring might stain your clothing further!). Then, it sit for a little white, brush the chalk off, and launder as usual. You could actually see the chalk absorb the stain! Note that you may have to repeat the chalking more than once for optimal results. This works best on fresh grease stains and may not have any effect on old ones that have already been washed and dried. Look at it this way — many people already have chalk lying around the house and it's inexpensive. It almost certainly won't hurt your clothing, so why not give it a shot?

Social media site Reddit had some positive things to say about the absorbent powers of sidewalk chalk when lifting stains. While not related to the kitchen, one Redditor shared promising before-and-after pics of a soiled mechanic's work shirt after it was treated with both sidewalk chalk and Dawn dish soap. We can't help but surmise that, if the combo works on engine oil, it would probably be effective against cooking oils and greasy food. On another Reddit thread discussing the chalk hack, a user encouraged patience and shared a helpful tip: "To add to this: anytime you're trying to remove a stain from a garment, especially a grease stain, treat it, wash it, but DON'T dry it until you're sure the stain has been removed. Otherwise the dryer bakes it into place and it becomes much harder to ever get it out."

There are several pantry staples that we know are great for cleaning, so you might utilize some of them on fabric stains from cooking or eating. We hear that a paste of baking soda and vinegar, two common kitchen items, might even be more effective than bleach at treating white clothing. Another winning combo is lemon juice and salt, which, combined with some gentle bleaching from the sun, is a proven stain-fighter. If you don't have chalk in your house, cornstarch might work in a similar way to absorb grease that's staining fabric. The best part is that many of these all-natural methods can be used in conjunction with each other, ensuring that your cooking stains don't stand a chance.