Tide To Go - Out, Damned Spot! Out, I Say!
Written: May 31 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Sometimes works
Cons: Doesn't work all the time
The Bottom Line: This is an OK product, but I won't rush out to buy another Tide To Go pen.
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| mmcphee's Full Review: Tide to Go |
Kids and messes just seem to go hand-in-hand. I don’t think a day goes by that someone doesn’t spill or drip something on a shirt. It never seems to fail that a stain appears right before we are leaving the house, usually necessitating changing some clothes. I really hoped that Tide To Go would cut down on these last minute strip downs!
The Basics
Tide to Go is an instant stain remover for fresh stains such as coffee, juice and tomato based products. It is not designed for greasy stains. It comes in a magic marker type dispenser making it easy to transport. To use first you need to blot up any excess stain. You then push the tip of the marker into the stain, this releases the liquid cleaner. Then you rub the pen gently around the stain to remove it. If the fabric will be exposed to sunlight you should use try to remove as much of the cleaning solution with a napkin or paper towel.
My Experience
I really, really wanted Tide To Go to be the answer to my problems. Unfortunately I have had mixed results.
My first chance to try it came quickly after opening my Tide To Go. My daughter’s had PBJ sandwiches for breakfast and my oldest had a blob of jelly on her 100% polyester nightgown. Since it was time to get dressed anyway I wasn’t all that concerned with getting the stain out right away, but I thought it might be a good test for the pen. I wiped up the excess jelly with a napkin and used my Tide To Go pen as directed. I didn’t expect much since even after blotting the stain was still quite thick on the fabric. I was pleasantly surprised to see that while the stain was not gone, the color faded from dark red to a barely visible pink. I was quite impressed.
Lunch offered my next opportunity to test out the Tide To Go pen. Ziti with tomato sauce was on the menu. While my oldest managed to stay clean, my younger daughter’s shirt was covered in tomato sauce stains. It was too much to even think about using the pen to get it all out, but after I changed her I decided to at least test in in a few spots on her 60/40 cotton/poly blend shirt. It took quite a bit of rubbing on the quarter sized area I chose for my test, but the stain was completely gone.
We went to a Memorial Day picnic over the weekend so I figured I would get plenty of chances to use my Tide To Go pen. Both girls enjoyed hamburgers with ketchup and popsicles for dessert, and both ended up wearing some of their dinner. I figured that I wouldn’t have any problems getting these stains out of their 100% cotton shirts. Well, I was disappointed. I was able to lighten the stain, but it was still very obvious that ketchup and popsicles had been on the menu.
I figured there were two possible reasons I had less success with the picnic stains. First this was the first time I tried Tide to Go on 100% cotton clothes. In my experience polyester tends to be much easier to get stains out of than cotton. Second the girls were wearing their clothes at the time. With my previous test I was able to work on the stain using my kitchen countertop, so it provided a nice firm horizontal surface. At the picnic I was forced to rub against my hand and rub against a vertical surface, not quite so easy. I was in a place where I could have taken off their shirts to work on them, but that certainly is not always the case.
Just today I found a drop of BBQ sauce on my shirt, so I figured I would give the Tide to Go another chance on my 60/40 cotton/poly blend shirt. I actually found the pen quite awkward to use on myself. The blob was on my chest. So I either had to try and rub against my body or put my hand under my shirt to act as a work surface. Since the exact spot of the stain was in an area that I had no intention of rubbing cleaner into I opted to stretch out my shirt and put my hand underneath to work against. I’m sure I would have gotten some stares doing that in a restaurant. Now of course, being at home I could have just taken off my shirt and worked on the stain at the table, or more likely changed my shirt and tossed the dirty one in the laundry pile. But since I am quite sure that I would not have either of those options available in a restaurant I figured I had better keep my shirt on. Eventually, with a lot of work I was able to get the stain off of my shirt while I was still wearing it. It just seemed like a lot more work and contortionism than I would really want to try to duplicate in public.
Final Thoughts
The Tide To Go pen works for some stains on some materials in some situations. Stains are definitely easier to get out if you can remove the article of clothing and work against a hard surface. But that kind of seems to defeat the “To Go” portion of the product since most of us are not going to strip in public to get out a stain and at home there seems no need for a $3 pen when I have a pretreated handy.
Thanks to DeVries Public Relations for providing me with a free Tide To Go in exchange for my unbiased review.
Recommended:
No
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mmcphee
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Member: Mary Ellen
Location: Nutmeg State
Reviews written: 1122
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Invaded by swine flu! It isn't pretty...
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