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This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to what people in the food industry are eating, drinking, and buying right now. Here, Zoe Denenberg writes about Defunkify, the stain remover she uses on her couch and countertops.
As someone who spent way too much time watching QVC as a child, I have a soft spot for products that claim to perform everyday miracles. I’m also an incredibly messy cook and eater, so it’s really no surprise that I was attracted to Defunkify, a cleaning brand with a self-proclaimed “magical stain remover” that’ll treat any fabric. What is a surprise, however, is how much I’ve grown to love and rely on this humble cleaning spray—and not just for fabric stains.
Defunkify’s stain removing spray dissolves coffee splashes from my white terrycloth robe. It gets chocolate off my white couch pretty much once a week (why did I buy a white couch in the first place?) and performed a downright act of God on the pair of white linen pants I once wore to an underground rave. The stain-fighting solution works quickly without leaving behind weird water marks or a chemical smell—it’s free of synthetic fragrances, phosphates, or dyes commonly found in other cleaning products.
So far, I haven’t found a stain that this spray can’t tackle. But its most impressive feat, the true Olympic-level performance, happened not on fabric—the surface it’s designed to treat—but on my white stone countertop.
A few months ago, I hosted my first Shabbat dinner in my new apartment—an affair involving copious amounts of challah and red wine. Unfortunately, not one of my guests used the coasters I’d suggestively set out at the start of the evening. Cleanup time rolled around, and my stomach sank when I discovered three rings of red wine staining my beautiful white counter.
Resisting the urge to panic, I unearthed just about every cleaning product from the black hole of a cabinet beneath my sink. I started with an all-natural all-purpose spray and, when that proved ineffective, moved on to glass cleaner (nope), citrus-scented deep-cleaning mist (go fish), and, as a last-ditch effort, a mysterious solution with a label written entirely in Italian (very chic, but no dice). The red wine stains snarled up at me, seeping deeper into the stone by the minute.
Residually tipsy and losing all hope, I spotted my bottle of Defunkify fabric stain remover and thought, Why not? I spritzed it on the stubborn red wine rings and let it sit while I started on the dishes. Five minutes and all the stages of grief later, a mere swipe of a paper towel revealed that the Defunkify spray had completely dissolved the stains. They’d downright vanished.
While I still use all-purpose spray for everyday cleaning, I call in this powerful stain fighter for the toughest jobs: spilled matcha, turmeric-tinted curry, and splattered tomato sauce. It’s $20 for a two-pack and, if you run through it as fast as I do, you can sign up for a subscription plan.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one that uses this spray far beyond its intended purpose. Hundreds of 5-star reviews claim that this stain remover works on clothing, carpets, couches, walls, granite, and just about any other surface. Diesel mechanic and enthusiastic reviewer Joanna B. uses it to scrub engine oil and hydraulic fluid out of “denim, canvas, and various other materials.” But for me, a messy person who for some reason loves the color white, the alchemy performed on my countertop will always be this spray’s greatest trick.