By Zach Pozniak, VP of Operations at Jeeves of Belgravia New York and fourth-generation dry cleaner · @jeeves_ny
Last reviewed August 2026 · based on hands-on lab testing of 10 stain removers through 2025 · As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Some links here go to brands directly, and I may earn a commission on those too.
Quick answer: I tested 10 stain removers with a spectrometer over 800 data points. The best were Miss Mouth's Messy Eater ↗ and Dad Mode ↗, but a high-quality liquid laundry detergent hung right with them, which means you may not need a separate product at all. For makeup, reach for OxiClean Max Force ↗; for ink and oil-based paint, Zout ↗. Avoid The Pink Stuff and Grandma's Secret Spot Remover: they have no enzymes.
Most "best stain remover" lists are someone spraying two shirts and eyeballing the result. This one isn't. As a fourth-generation dry cleaner, I ran 10 stain removers through the AISE industry-standard method the big testing labs use. White cotton swatches were stained with 20 hard-to-remove stains, then left to dry for three days so they were genuinely set in. Each product was tested at two dwell times (about five minutes and about an hour, with an hour being the realistic minimum for best results), in two different machines, then air-dried and measured with a spectrometer. Ten products × 20 stains × four cycles gives 800 data points, so I'm confident in the order.
I grouped the stains into five families (oily, enzymatic, particulate, special like inks and paint, and makeup) because a product that wins one category often loses another. That's the whole point of the table below: there isn't one "best" for everyone, there's a best for your stain.
| Product | Tier | Food & oil | Makeup | Ink & paint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miss Mouth's Messy Eater ↗#1 overall by a small margin; portable | Best | Top performer | · | · |
| Dad Mode ↗The most well-rounded product in the test | Best | Solid | Solid | Solid |
| High-quality liquid detergent ↗Rub in and wait; the "you already own it" pick (Persil, Tide Stain Release) | Best | Strong | · | · |
| OxiClean Max Force ↗Just missed the top tier overall | Average | Solid | Best in test | · |
| Zout ↗The specialist for oil-based paint, Sharpie, pen ink | Average | · | · | Best in test |
| Shout (Advanced gel) ↗Buy for makeup, not much else | Average | Weak | Strong | Weak |
| Amodex ↗Strong on ink but fiddly to use | Average | · | · | Top three |
| Clorox (for colors) ↗Average results, messy to apply | Average | · | · | · |
| Grandma's SecretSecond-to-last; no ingredient list published | Skip | · | · | · |
| The Pink StuffNo enzymes; bottom three in every category | Skip | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 |
Tiers and stain-family results are from my own lab testing of 10 stain removers (20 stains per product, spectrometer-measured). A · means the product was mid-pack rather than a standout, good or bad, in that family.
Miss Mouth's ↗ had the best performance of anything I tested, though only by a small margin. It's portable, it did a great job against food and oil stains thanks to a high citric-acid content, and that same citric acid makes for a neat party trick on fresh red wine or berries (it's made by the same people behind Chateau Spill wine remover). If you want one bottle to keep in the kitchen, this is it.
Dad Mode ↗ is a newcomer that was extremely solid in every category, which sounds easy but isn't, because almost every other product was strong in one area and weak in another. It's the safe pick if you face a bit of everything and don't want to think about it. It earned its top-tier spot.
The most useful thing I learned testing these: a good liquid laundry detergent like Persil ↗ or Tide Stain Release hung right with the best stain removers. Detergent already contains the same surfactants and enzymes as a standalone spray, which honestly makes a lot of dedicated stain products redundant. Rub a little directly into the stain before washing and you're most of the way there for free.
OxiClean Max Force ↗ just missed the top tier overall, but it was the best of everything against makeup stains: foundation, lipstick, the marks that ruin a collar. Shout ↗ was a close second on makeup. If makeup is your recurring problem, buy Max Force specifically for it.
Zout ↗ did the best against the "special" stains (oil-based paint, Sharpie, and pen ink) while being only average everywhere else. It's the one to keep on hand if you (or a kid) regularly battle marker and ink. For ink specifically, I'd reach for Zout over the products that merely claim to remove ink.
I used to be a Shout guy. In rigorous testing it excelled on makeup but was genuinely weak everywhere else, which landed it mid-pack. It's not bad (in an older spray-only test it was my favorite spray), but once I tested it head-to-head against everything, it stopped being my default. Fine to own; don't expect it to win.
Both finished at the very bottom. The Pink Stuff was in the bottom three of every category: its ingredient list is basically soap, surfactant, citric acid, and hydrogen peroxide, with no enzymes. As I put it: not including enzymes in a stain remover is like not including flour in a bread recipe. What's the point? Grandma's Secret was second-to-last and wouldn't even publish an ingredient list. Save your money.
If you take one thing from this page: before you buy anything, rub a high-quality liquid detergent directly into the stain and let it sit. In a side-by-side, an untreated swatch released 53% of its stains while a detergent-pretreated swatch released 67%. Give it at least 15 minutes; the longer the better, with about 8 hours as a good rule of thumb. It's nearly free, you already own it, and it's the trick I use most. For which detergents actually clean best, see my tested detergent rankings.
The reason there's no single "best" is that different stains need different chemistry:
By detergent form, pods removed 84% of stains in testing, liquid 82%, and powder 74%, but a powder with oxygen bleach in it beat all of them on the stains that respond to bleach.
Format matters less than what's inside the bottle. Among sprays, Shout won my earlier spray-only test, though the full 10-product test later landed it mid-pack overall. Gels like Shout Advanced ↗ cling to the stain while they work, but they live or die by their enzymes. Sticks and wipes are for fresh spills away from home (details below), and at home a wipe actually beats the pen. For coffee, tea, and wine, an oxygen-bleach powder soak outperforms nearly every spray. And the cheapest format of all is liquid detergent rubbed straight into the stain. Whatever the format: if the label lists no enzymes, skip it.
For a pen to keep in a bag, I tested four sticks and the two I'd recommend are Tide To Go ↗ and OxiClean ↗: both are easy to use and do a decent job on a fresh spill. Skip Whip-It (it made a wine stain bigger) and be wary of sticks with little applicator nubs that hold onto old stains. One tip: for a spill at home, a Tide wipe actually lifts the stain off the fabric a little better than the pen, which mostly just moves it around.
Expensive doesn't mean better. In one test, a $20 bottle of designer stain solution lost to a roughly 25-cent homemade mix of dish soap, white vinegar, and water across most stains. Vinegar (an acid) handles tannin stains like wine and chocolate; oxygen bleach handles coffee and tomato. So a top-tier product is worth it for convenience, but you are never required to spend a fortune to get a stain out.
The best dedicated stain removers are Miss Mouth's ↗ and Dad Mode ↗, but a good liquid detergent is right there with them and probably already in your laundry room. Buy OxiClean Max Force ↗ for makeup and Zout ↗ for ink, skip The Pink Stuff and Grandma's Secret, and remember that getting to a stain quickly, and never drying it in, matters more than which bottle you grab. For a set-in stain on something valuable or delicate, professional cleaning is the safer call.
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Zach Pozniak is VP of Operations and co-owner of Jeeves of Belgravia New York, the Madison Avenue dry cleaner serving New York since 1979, and the fourth generation of his family in the trade. Zach posts garment care techniques as @jeeves_ny on TikTok to over 900,000 followers, and his book The Laundry Book, co-written with his father Jerry Pozniak, was featured on Good Morning America in October 2024. Jeeves NY's clients include the Metropolitan Opera, the Met Museum, and FIT, and the business has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and New York Magazine.
