Luis Ferreira, Everyday stains writer

I write about the ordinary, constant stains. Coffee in the car, a splash of olive oil, grass on the knees of school trousers, the glass of red that tips over at somebody else's table. They aren't dramatic, but they're the reason most people buy a stain remover in the first place.

What I care about is what a product asks of you. Some sprays want five minutes, some want overnight, and a soap bar wants a brush and a bit of elbow grease. That lives in the directions, not in the product name, so I put the directions of five or six products side by side before I look at a single star rating.

Then come the owner reviews, sorted by stain and fabric. "Worked great" on a white cotton tee says very little about a grease mark on polyester, so I look for people describing the same kind of mess on the same kind of cloth.

I write the guides on coffee and tea, grease and cooking oil, grass and mud, and red wine, and I edit two of Abigail's. None of it comes from our own laundry basket. It comes from labels, listings and a great many other people's.