I made this rag quilt for my oldest son's toddler bed, and was sad to find a huge blue marker stain on it several years ago. I tried hairspray on the stain, which only seemed to spread the blue around and not remove any large quantity of it.
It has been in my stain removal bucket for years and I finally decided to throw it out. My mom stopped me and suggested I try hand sanitizer.
Hand sanitizer is mostly alchohol, like hairspray, which is it's stain removing ingredient. Unlike hairspray hand sanitizer is a gel and stays in the stained area to deeply penetrate and remove. Since I had left the stain so long and probably washed and dried it, it didn't come out completely, but it is enough improved that it will work for an outdoor blanket.
The bonus: while I was working on the quilt all the paint stains on my hands came off, grin.
WHOA! Thanks for that! We ALSO have a blue magic-marker stain on about three different things, and I can't get it out. Will try this!
Posted by: carrie | June 05, 2010 at 02:44 PM
Wow! I will definitely remember that! Thanks for the tip.
(I got to your blog from Melissa Salmon - we are in the same Sunday School class at FBC Bryan, and I went to Bryan High years ago.)
Posted by: jenna | June 05, 2010 at 05:04 PM
Thanks for this tip. I may give it a try on a few items that have been sitting in my stain basket for a while. It's worth a try.
Posted by: Country Girl in the City | June 05, 2010 at 10:16 PM
Yesterday my son took an ink pen and wrote all over my micro suede couch and then today he took a blue sharpie and colored the other parts of the sofa. Coincidentally I had a large bottle of instant hand sanitizer from the hospital after my son was born. The hand sanitizer had just recently expired so I wanted to use it soon. The couch is a "treasure" find because apparently people around here throw out things when they get dirty (even if its super easy to clean) lol. So I figured, what have I got to lose? If it takes off the couch color it's not like I'm out any money on the couch or the hand sanitizer. So I very liberally applied the sanitizer and rubbed it in, it almost instantly took the ink pen and sharpie off! A few of the darker spots needed a second treatment, but it didn't affect the couch color at all! Also a few extra awesome things about this particular cleaning job, my hands feel fantastic afterward and it dried off the couch super quickly. Fabulous idea, thanks for posting it!
Posted by: Shauna | June 16, 2010 at 01:52 PM
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Posted by: painting toronto | February 28, 2011 at 03:52 AM