How To Get Period Blood Stains Out Of Your Bed Sheets?

We’ve all been there…

You wake up, get out of bed, turn around to make the duvet all neat, and there’s period blood stains spreading their way across your beautiful white Egyptian cotton bed sheets.

Whether it’s an unexpected period, a heavy period, ill-fitting period products, or you’ve slept in a funny position, waking up to period blood on your bed sheets is a fairly common occurrence. But it’s annoying none the less. Especially, if you’ve only just changed the bedding, and even more so if it’s brand new bed sheets!

Don’t worry though, because as long as you deal with it straight away, there are ways to prevent the blood from permanently staining your sheets. If this is something you’ve experienced or something you’re worried about happening in the future, we’re going to share some tips to help you get period blood stains out of your bed sheets.

Deal With It Straight Away

We get that dealing with period blood stains isn’t top of your activity wish list first thing in the morning, but for a better chance of getting them out, you’re going to need to wipe that sleepy dust out of your eyes and get stripping. We mean the bed sheets, obvs!

Take the sheet off the bed and check whether it has soaked through. If you use a mattress topper and it has stained this, remove and put to one side with the sheet so that you can clean them at the same time. If the blood has soaked through to the mattress, firstly soak the area with cold water and then cover with a baking soda paste made from 2 parts baking soda to 1 part water. Leave for 30 minutes, then remove and pat the area with a damp cloth. You might also want to leave your bedroom window open to allow it to dry. Failing that you could give it a quick blast with a hairdryer, but only if the stain has completely gone, as the heat from the hair dryer will set any remaining stain and then you’ll never get it out.

Soak the stained bed sheets in cold water, ideally overnight, but if you need them sooner than that leave them submerged in cold water for as long as you possibly can, while still allowing time to give them a proper wash and a dry. Whatever you do, despite all your cleaning instincts screaming at you, do no not run the stain under hot water. Heat will react with the proteins in the blood and this will set the stain into the fabric even more so. It’s cold water all the way when it comes to period blood stains!

Washing Instructions

How you wash your sheets after they’ve been soaked will depend a little on what colour they are. If they’re white, despite it looking as though they may be completely unsalvageable, you can at least treat them with something a bit more powerful. Squirt a small amount of hydrogen peroxide, or lemon juice if you’d prefer to take a more natural approach, into a bowl of water and soak the sheet for a further 30 minutes. Make sure you’re wearing gloves when you remove the sheets as the chemicals aren’t great for your skin. This technique will only work on whites as coloured sheets will bleach and you’ll end up with patches.

Coloured sheets that have been pre-soaked in cold water, are best off treated with specialist stain removal products geared at protecting colours. These won’t bleach the colour out and will instead help to preserve colour whilst also treating the stain.

Dried Period Blood Stains

Removing dried period blood stains isn’t going to be as easy as if you’d treated them straight away, however there are still some things you can try.

Vinegar – Soak the stained sheets in a solution of 1 part white vinegar to 1 part cold water and leave for 30 minutes. Rinse and then put on a cold wash cycle in your washing machine.
Baking Soda – Mix 2 parts baking soda with 1 part cold water and smear onto the stain. Leave for 30 minutes, by which point it should be dry, and then scrape off the excess. Put in the washing machine on a cold wash.
Stain Remover – There are loads of different stain removers out there, including some that specifically target blood stains. Pre-treatments come in the form of a bar or powder and can be rubbed directly on the stain prior to washing. And then you can also get stain removal liquid and powder that goes into the washing machine.
Salt Water – Make up a solution of salt water – 1 to 2 tablespoons of water for every litre of water – and soak the sheets overnight. The salt will help draw out the period blood stains.

Things To Remember

Make sure you wash your stained bed sheets separately – The blood itself won’t stain any other items if you were to put them in together, but in order to give your sheets a fighting chance you need them to have full run of the machine. If a washing machine is overfilled it won’t do as good a clean, so give your sheets some space and treat them to a wash of their own.
Don’t tumble dry – We all know how nice it is to climb into a bed that’s just been made up with sheets that are fresh, clean, and still toasty warm from the tumble drier, but when it comes to stain removal, heat is not your friend. If there is even the slightest stain left on your sheets, that you would still like to have a go at removing, air dry outside and give it another go.

Just because your sheets have got period blood stains on them, doesn’t mean they are destined for the bin. We’re all trying to save a bit of money where we can, and so hopefully these tips will show you that with just a little bit of elbow grease and a tonne of cold water your bed sheets can come up as good as new.