FAQs - Oil Stains on Fabric

Please send the fabric sample if you can, but I can give you some idea of the challenges you'll face with this product:

Viscose is another name for rayon. Rayon (as you likely know or remember from class) is a fragile fiber that becomes very weak when wet. Cotton stays strong, which is good in most cases, but in blends with rayon (viscose) this can happen:

The strong cotton swells up as it absorbs water, and as it does, it causes the weaker rayon to stretch around the saturated swollen cotton yarns, which creates shrinkage. This shrinkage may be difficult to correct as the weaker rayon may split either during shrinkage or during attempts to stretch the fabric back into shape.

The second issue is the tanning oil. Oil is always a challenge to remove from textiles, but in this case it will be even more challenging. Most oily stains respond best to preconditioning agents that have a solvent booster added, especially when followed by aggressive hot water extraction techniques using the highest heat possible in the rinse extraction solution.

This technique is great for thermoplastic synthetic fibers (acrylic, nylon, olefin, polyester), but not so great on natural fibers or "synthetic natural fibers" that use regenerated cellulose like rayon and acetate. With these fibers the solvent booster causes the preconditioning solution to "wet out" the fabric, which can contribute to shrinkage. Follow up hot water extraction will have two additional risks:

1. The heated solution required to break the oil bonds that exist in the fabric will also wet out the fabric more readily than lukewarm solutions, which also might contribute to color bleeding.

2. The needed aggressive scrubbing strokes with preconditioning tools and the extraction tool may damage the rayon (viscose) yarns.

With all of that considered, you might want to pass on attempting to clean this fabric unless you have some clear limitations of your liability that have been put into writing.