I'll huff and puff and I'll make your stains fade away...

The Big Bad Wolf came along and messed up part of my experiment (twice at that)! ><

Prologue

Today was the day that I embarked on my epic SIP experiment. I decided to start off with 2 of the 4 stains - chocolate milk (protein stain) and tea (tannin stain). In preparation, I cut 20 10x10cm squares of white cloth. I stretched them out taut, over the rim of disposable cups, and secured them with rubber bands, so that I had a smooth surface to apply the stains on.

I then applied the stains using my syringe. I carefully dropped 0.2mls of stain on the centre of the cloth and allowed it to spread.

Chapter One

I had initially intended to use tea as my tannin stain, but after I left it to set for an hour, to my utter horror, the colour of the tea had faded so much that it was almost invisible!!!

I most certainly could not use this washed-out stain for my experiment! I had to change the liquid for my tannin stain. Just then, my eyes flitted to a shiny glass bottle of Nescafe Gold!

WHOOPIE! I did some quick research to ascertain that coffee did contain tannin, and YES it did! Alas, I found my new tannin stain! BLACK COFFEE - that should stain better than tea. Problem solved.

Chapter Two

I had initially intended to leave my stains to set for an hour, but when I checked back an hour after staining, the stains were still moist! I thought: Why not leave it for a total of 6 hours?

5 hours later...

Yay! The stains were finally dry (or at least they appeared to be...)! The eager beaver promptly washed the control cloth (stained with chocolate milk) with water, expecting the stain to remain completely intact.

NOOOOOO!

Why was this happening? The more I washed the stain under the tap, the more it faded away... Perhaps, I should have left the stain to set for a longer time, or perhaps I was using the wrong stain? Maybe, chocolate milk contained mainly soluble proteins??

Anyhow, I decided that for the time being, my new setting time would be 24 hours - that should do the trick! (I hope...) Nevertheless, at this early stage of the experiment, one simple conclusion that can be drawn is - if you want to remove any stain, do it as soon as possible, before it sets! Fresh stains are infinitely easier to remove than permanent ones:)

We'll have to wait till tomorrow to find out the results...*crosses fingers expectantly*