Once the wedding day is over, there may no longer be need for the bride to keep her wedding dress. Some brides may like to keep their wedding gown as a memento or to pass it down to their daughters. However, many brides may not need the dress any longer and perhaps would like to earn some of the money back that they paid by selling their wedding dress.

When selling a wedding gown, the bride must make sure that there are no spots or other stains on the dress before it’s sold. Luckily, there are some steps that can be taken to help take the stains out of a dress so that it looks like it did when it was first purchased.

Before stains or spots are taken care of, they must be properly identified and pretreated. It is also important to take note of the fabric; man-made fabrics such as polyester are typically easier to remove stains from than natural fabrics like silk. Some stains like red wine or grass stains might be harder to get out than food stains or oily stain residues. It depends on the severity of the stain and the the skill of the person to removing the stain.

As soon as the stain is noticed, it should be pre-treated. Pre-treating a stain helps to break down the stain at the microscopic level. Pre-treating allows the fibers of the wedding gown to be completely saturated so that the stain is able to lift out of the fabric much more easily When pre-treating a stain, the bride should approach the stain gently, not trying to rub or scrub the stain clean.

A dry white towel can be used to gently blot up moisture from the stain before it’s actually treated. The reason a white towel is used is so that the person cleaning the wedding gown can see how much of the stain is lifting off. If the stain is more oily, baby powder can be applied and then the stain can be blotted up.

When the baby powder is applied, the oily stain adheres to the talcum powder so it can be lifted easily. Red wine can be removed by first pre-treating the stain by dabbing it with a white towel to remove the majority of the stain first. Afterwards, the stain can be dabbed from the outer edges, inward using a warm cloth. The same method may also be applied for blood stains.

Depending on the type of staining that happens to a wedding gown, the removal methods are slightly different. However when immediate action is taken for stains, the bride will be able to resell the wedding dress as a near new gown for the use of another bride.