My wife picked up some garlic butter chicken for our youngest son a couple of days ago. During the transport home the Styrofoam container leaked which soaked through the paper bag. It stained the cloth seat in her 1.5 year old Toyota Rav4. Any good tips on how to get the stain out?

Butter is grease. Dawn dishwashing soap cuts grease and is gentle. Degreasers like Simple Green or Purple Power, etc are concentrated so if used too strong could be harsh on color. But...they will degrease.
I would wet, then Dawn, then scrub with brush, then wet. I would then use my Bissel Little Green Machine or a shop vac to extract the water. Along with the soap, the secret is to use much more water than you might initially think is reasonable. Then, continue to extract out that water.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Be sure to repeat with lots of water and lots of extraction of that water.
Smell; after all, it was Garlic Chicken...
I like the fresh sent of Tuff Stuff which is sold in the automotive dept of most retailers. I have bought it at WalMart, Advance Auto, Dollar General, etc.
So easy kids can do it...


My tool kit (from left to right)
- Small green and white scrub brush on the ground in the shadow of the font door
- Spray bottle of just clear water for adding more water
- Brown "soft foam" mat to kneel on
- Yellow/Red can of Tuff Stuff
- Clear water bottle (like a catsup bottle but clear) for adding more water to direct areas (in front of rear tire)
- Another can of Tuff Stuff
- The Bissel Little Green Machine (dont have kids or pets without owning one!)
Another vote for trying with Dawn first.
Dawn is good. I would go oil full concentrate eater. Spray it on let set spray on more agitate lightly and when extract with a wet vac and liberal amounts of HOT water. Re apply oil water and repeat. Two applications I would think would do it but three or four may be needed to pull the smell put of the seat foam. I am carful no to agitate it to much on the first application as I don't want to drive the stain in to the seat as about 90 percent of it will be on /in the cloth.
Be liberal with both the oil eater and the hot water. Agitation with a soft brush is always a good thing as well. I have done this and usually end up cleaning the whole seat as the area you clean gets so clean you now have a clean spot that shows up when it drys. You will be amazed at the amount of filth you will pull out of cloth seats. Always amazes me that I was sitting on so much filth and yet the seat looked clean.
Did I mention brake cleaner?
1SlowVW said:
Streetwiseguy said:
Did I mention brake cleaner?
Came in to suggest this.
I've heard that mentioned before, do tell. Spray and dab with cloth/paper towel, or?
I'd have thought you'd wind up with solvent smell.
I've used the dawn/water/wet vac, works really well, but can be a bit labor intensive, depending.
In reply to OldGray320i (Forum Supporter) :
I had an incident with oil getting into a seat on my ranger. Tried a bunch of things but it just kept creeping out of the seat.
Finally I thought, brake clean removes oil.
So I sprayed some on a rag and once I was sure it wasn't affecting the seat fabric I gave it several liberal applications. Every time I would soak with brake clean then wipe with a cloth. Worked better than any of the less aggressive alternatives.