Product Review: Shout Stain-Lifting Foam

Recently, I absent-mindedly tucked a tube of lipstick in my pants pocket. I just as absent-mindedly tossed the pants into the laundry hamper - then in the washer - and then in the dryer - never noticing that there was a little something in the pocket.

Lipstick melts.

I had never considered the possibility before, even knowing that lipstick is a waxy substance that will drip all over everything when heat is applied. Thirty minutes in my dryer caused the entire tube to melt and redistribute itself over everything.

Making matters worse, the items in the dryer were our church clothes, some of my husband's nicer work clothes, and two of his favorite t-shirts. Everything was smudged and smeared with bright red lipstick stains.

I looked on the internet for a solution. "Dry Cleaning Fluid" was recommended. Yet my local grocery store doesn't carry this (the company that makes the Dryel home dry-cleaning kit, which contains a stain remover, was not able to tell me if their product would remove lipstick stains or not!)

I began to search the laundry aisle for anything that might give me hope. Mixed in with the other stain removers, I found a product called "Shout Stain Lifting Foam". It comes in a large spray can, and at the top it says, "Removes Greasy Stains". Apparently it also treats nasty stains like pasta sauce and mud, but that did not concern me at the moment: "greasy" meant it might remove lipstick stains.

The purchase price was very low, as well - under three dollars for a 20 ounce can. The product looks rather like a can of air freshener or spray paint, but it has the familiar Shout logo on it. I figured if it didn't work, I wasn't out much.

I'm now a Shout user for life. The Shout Stain-Lifting Foam removed every single lipstick spot... you can't even tell that our clothes were stained! I'm very impressed.

The directions say to spray a spot thoroughly, wait up to five minutes, and then launder with detergent as usual. Given that the clothes were spotted all over with the lipstick, I elected to simply spray each item, front and back.