Sloppy Eaters: iPhone App Helps With Stains

Sloppy eaters, red wine spillers and all-around messy people, there’s now an iPhone application for you.

Next time you stain your favorite shirt or a friend’s white tablecloth, Tide’s new Stain Brain app might help you get the spot out.

Available for free in Apple’s App Store, the application lets users choose between 20 different kinds of stains — from oil and wax to wine and ketchup and everything in between. For each kind of stain, the application provides a specific set of washing directions.

As you might expect, Tide products star in nearly every set of cleaning instructions. But the directions still include some helpful tips, such as letting you know how to prepare the item before throwing it in the washing machine, and when to use bleach.

If those solutions don’t seem to help, Stain Brain also lets other users share their own hints and highlight the best (and worst) tips they find on the application.

“As the trusted leader in laundry and fabric care, we wanted to create a tool to help people with a universal problem: frustrating stains,” says Suzanne Watson, associate marketing director for Tide North America.  “At the same time, we recognize that consumers also have a lot of passion for their own personal stain remedies, so we wanted to provide a forum for people to share the laundry tips and tricks that work best for them.”
 

- Ki Mae Heussner