The moment of truth

Today, I finally got to meet up with dear Miss Tan to discuss my SIP progress. Based on her feedback and advice, and since I still have plenty of time (3 weeks), this is what I will be doing next to improve my experiment (in no particular order).

1. The protein stain I used was Milo drink, which contained largely soluble proteins and was hence easily washed off. I am currently searching for another protein stain which contains mainly non-soluble proteins to run a re-test.
2. After soaking the stains in cleaning agents, I washed them off under a running tap and applied gentle scrubbing motions to remove the stains. However, the limitation here would be that there was no way I could guarantee that the force and technique used each time was exactly the same, which may confound the results. I had actually considered washing them with the washing machine - fixed timing and cycle, but due to the small number and size of the cloths used, it was not practical and would have wasted too much water. Miss Tan suggested I repeat the experiment, changing the washing technique. This time round, I will leave the soaked stains in a basin of water to observe how much of the stain can be removed. This would then keep this variable constant.
3. For documentation of colour reduction, instead of just the ranking alone, I will be detailing the exact 'number of steps' the colour has lightened compared to the original stain.
4. Miss Tan also requested me to put all my raw data onto a google spreadsheet so that interested parties may access it. So, do look out for it! But, now that I'm repeating the experiment, I'm afraid this won't be ready till next weekend.
5. I will also be putting up a link with all 120 'before & after' pictures of my beloved stains soon.
6. I happened to mention to Miss Tan that I chose oil-based ink over water-based ink, as the latter smudged badly when I tried to wash the stains off and messed up the final stain area, resulting in me not being able to assess stain area reduction accurately. She requested for a picture and here is is - the runaway water-based ink stain! YUCK!!
   

Looks like I'll be having a busy week ahead! I'm not expecting the results to differ too much (hopefully) though. Will update all of you as soon as the results are in. :D