Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She'll be here every week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Are you dirty? Email her. Are you still dirty? Subscribe to Ask a Clean Person: The Podcast on Acast, iTunes or Stitcher, and like Ask a Clean Person on Facebook.

I love your column. One thing I really need help on figuring out how to clean my ties. Most of them are silk, but some are wool. I get stains on them that I want to get out without having to take them to the cleaners. I guess most of the stains are from food or drink spills. How can I keep my ties looking spot-free?

Oh sure thing, help is here, my friend! With Father's Day right around the corner—and let this serve as your two-week warning to book tickets, buy bourbon, schedule a tee time, etc. in honor of dear old Dad—this is an excellent time to talk about the basics of cleaning a tie. So thank you for asking what is a very good question that, no doubt, many others would like to know how to answer.

Ties are actually pretty easy to care for, once the mystery has been taken out of the proceedings. Which means that first, we must remember our Avoid The Dry Cleaner Cheat Sheet (ATDCCS). Not necessarily because avoiding the dry cleaner is the ticket here—though, I can certainly help you avoid taking your ties to the dry cleaner—but because as our Letter Writer already touched on, the fabric content of your tie is going to dictate much of how you'll clean it.

When it comes to ties, you don't actually need to remember all of the rules of fabric content set forth in the ATDCCS. You just need to recall the biggies: Silk, wool, and rayon/viscose. I mention that last one not because most of you are running around in rayon ties, but because rayon/viscose is commonly used in blends, and if your tie contains either of them, it will have to go to the dry cleaner—do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Rayon/viscose hates water, so if you use any kind of liquid-based cleaner, your tie will probably not survive.

Now that I've beaten the rules of rayon/viscose into your head, let's revisit the lessons we learned on washing silk and wool before moving onto specific techniques for treating stains on ties:

Silk is beautiful and temperamental, highly prone to color loss, and susceptible to water staining. I wouldn't blame you one bit if you outsourced its care. But if you would like to take matters into your own hands, silk can be hand washed in cool water, using a silk detergent like Le Blanc Silk & Lingerie Wash. The important thing to know about silk is that it doesn't love prolonged exposure to water, so your hand washing operation ought to be a quick one, no more than five minutes from start to finish.

Wool (inc. cashmere, angora, mohair, etc.) fibers are likely to felt—that is, become matted and shrink—when washed. There are two primary reasons that felting occurs: agitation and exposure to fluctuating water temperatures. Given that, it's best to hand wash, rather than machine wash, woolens in cool water. For way, way more on washing and caring for wool, check out my guide to sweater care.

But fabric content is only one part of the equation. Yes, it's important to use the correct products and techniques for the fibers in need of cleaning, but it's equally crucial to properly treat that which has caused the stain.

Dealing with Blurbs of Food or Sauce

A few weeks back, we took on the very serious work of removing Sriracha stains from our clothing, so some of this might sound familiar: Whenever you get a blurb (technical term) of food or sauce on clothing of any sort, including ties, the first thing to do is to remove as much of it as possible, either using a napkin/paper towel/what-have-you or by using a spoon or butter knife to lift the matter off the fabric. Then, use a dry napkin/paper towel/what-have-you to blot at the stain. Blotting is important here—don't rub or grind, which will just smear the stain and push it deeper into the fabric.

Spot Treating Stains

Okay so now you've removed the blob of hoisin sauce from your tie—moo shu pork will get you every time, am I right?—but there's still a stain left behind. Or maybe you splattered red wine, or gotten a stray pen mark, or dribbled some salad oil. No problem—you just need to spot treat those stains.

Now, you don't particularly need a specialty product to remove stains from ties, but one called Silk & Clean exists and it's pretty great. I especially like that it comes in moist towelette form, which makes it easy to slip into a wallet next to your JIC condom (it's expired, BTW, get a new one). The Silk & Clean people even made a kind of charming instructional video that's worth watching even if you opt out of using their product, because it provides a good visual explainer of the technique involved in removing a stain from a tie.

The crucial thing is to be firm but gentle, this is not the time to use force. Your tie, she is a delicate flower.

A few other products to mention that are really great for stain removal on the fly: Tide Pens, Shout Wipes, hand sanitizer. We talked about the hand san trick as part of our discussion of Sriracha stains, and the general idea is that, because it contains a high concentration of alcohol, it's a great in-a-pinch stain treatment, especially for ink and, well, Sriracha.

Of course, if a stain proves too stubborn to get out, you could always throw a tie bar over it and call it a day.

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