More slice-of-life

[xiphias]

LIS: What's that you're pouring on the clothes?
IAN: Hydrogen peroxide. It will foam up over any blood I missed.
LIS: What? It does that?
IAN: Yeah, it's very useful in cleaning up bloodstains. What do you THINK hydrogen peroxide is for?
LIS: Bleaching hair?
IAN: It reacts with hemoglobin by foaming up.
LIS: How do you know this?
IAN: Um. . . that's a good question. Why DO I know how to clean up bloodstains?

Comments

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

Because when you were a small child and skinned your knee, your mom showed you how to get the bloodstains out?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it has more to do with having a mother and a sister. Women's laundry includes blood.

[mbarr.livejournal.com]

That's where I know it from..

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

Why don't I know it, then?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You probably know the basics: get to it before it dries, rinse it in cold water until the blood stops flowing out of the cloth, wash in cold to avoid cooking the blood in.

Really, that's pretty much it.

Also, menstrual blood seems to dry slower than the other stuff. No idea why, or if this is actually true -- just it seems that way to me.

[gingicat]

It has mucus in it. (TMI: I got to see this firsthand when I tried out one of the menstrual cups.)

[dianavilliers.livejournal.com]

I was going to say, that this is something that women more usually teach men.

[pameladean]

I know it from having treated wounded cats. I gather that this is not current practice and is no longer recommended, but in the 1980's, one was advised to clean cat wounds with hydrogen peroxide.

P.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

We have better antibiotics now. H2O5 cleans the wound with the bubbling action, and kills things that can be destroyed by an overabundance of oxygen, but also can push other agents further within the wound.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Hydrogen peroxide is not optimal for removing bloodstains from most cloth, because it bleaches out so many dyes. An oxygen bleach like Oxy-Clean removes bloodstains, and most dyes (not all, but most) are colorfast to it. It doesn't foam, but you don't need to see the stain when you can immerse the whole thing in the cleaning solution.