How to wash acrylic paint — 7 working ways

Acrylic is oil based. It con­tains acids that col­or pig­ments, water and sub­stances that form a film. After dry­ing, acrylic cre­ates a sta­ble poly­mer film that hard­ens with­in an hour.

If you try to wash off the stain imme­di­ate­ly after its appear­ance, then the pol­lu­tion will be removed quick­ly and with­out prob­lems. There­fore, when work­ing with acrylic, keep a reg­u­lar rag handy to quick­ly and with­out con­se­quences wipe the stain.

How to clean acrylic paint

The clean­ing method depends on two fac­tors:

1. Time since sur­face con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. If the stain is recent, all you need is a rag and water: the paint will eas­i­ly be removed from the sur­face. If it is already old, then you will need to use more aggres­sive means.
2. Sur­face type. So, it is eas­i­er to clean a wood­en sur­face from paint than a fab­ric one.

Con­sid­er all sorts of ways to clean sur­faces from acrylic.

Paint hit an hour ago or more

If more than 1 hour has passed since the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, then you will need to use dis­in­fec­tants — for exam­ple, vine­gar, dish or win­dow clean­er, vod­ka or alco­hol, hair­spray or nail pol­ish remover (with­out ace­tone in the com­po­si­tion).

At the same time, in the case of tex­tile mate­ri­als, only dish­wash­ing deter­gent is per­mis­si­ble — sol­vents can­not be applied to them.

You will need to apply a dis­in­fec­tant to a cloth or sponge, and then walk over the sur­face.

The paint got in a few days ago

Then the acrylic has already hard­ened, and it will not be easy to get rid of it. It is nec­es­sary to pur­chase aggres­sive strong sol­vents by apply­ing them to the sur­face. After 30 min­utes, the acrylic film will begin to delam­i­nate — after that, you need to take a brush with stiff bris­tles and scrape it off.

Suit­able sol­vents are white spir­it, kerosene, ace­tone or tur­pen­tine. It is nec­es­sary to clean the sur­face with open win­dows, since such prod­ucts have a pun­gent odor and can adverse­ly affect well-being.

Other Methods for Eliminating Acrylic

If there are no aggres­sive prod­ucts at hand, you can try to heat the sur­face — for exam­ple, with a reg­u­lar hair dry­er. The method is suit­able for hard sur­faces.

Pro­ce­dure:

1. Apply soapy water to the stain.
2. Turn on the hair dry­er and direct the heat­ed air jet to the stain to be treat­ed.
3. Heat the sur­face for 4–5 min­utes.

Then the paint will soft­en, and it can be eas­i­ly removed with a cloth moist­ened with soapy water.

You can also buy a wash in con­struc­tion stores. It is designed to remove acrylic from soft and hard sur­faces of var­i­ous mate­ri­als. Wash­ing is a prod­uct that is unsafe for mucous mem­branes and skin and has a strong odor, so it must be used with cau­tion: with rub­ber gloves, with a res­pi­ra­tor and gog­gles, as well as with open win­dows and doors.

To use the wash, it is enough to moist­en the cloth in this agent, wipe the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed sur­face, and after 15 min­utes wipe the stain again with a rag.

Also in stores are sold uni­ver­sal clean­ers that remove any type of paint, includ­ing acrylics. You can use this tool to remove old stains. The com­po­si­tion of such clean­ers includes gaso­line and alco­hol. The pro­ce­dure is sim­ple: moist­en a rag in the prod­uct, apply it to the sur­face and wipe it with a rag.

How to wash acrylic from different surfaces

The choice of stain removal method depends on the paint depends on the sur­face itself.

How to clean acrylic paint from furniture

To wash acrylic from fab­ric uphol­stery, you need to pur­chase a remover and apply it to the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed area of ​​the fur­ni­ture. After 5 min­utes, it is enough to wipe the stain with a sponge. The pro­ce­dure may need to be repeat­ed.

Atten­tion! When using wash­es, you must wear a res­pi­ra­tor, gloves and gog­gles, as well as open the win­dows in the room.

To remove paint from wood, you can use fine-grained sand­pa­per or a spat­u­la.

Acrylic can be removed from plas­tic and met­al with a knife or blade. So, if you light­ly press on the sur­face with a knife, then the dried paint will quick­ly be removed.

How to remove acrylic from walls, ceilings, floors

A gel wash is suit­able for clean­ing plas­tered, met­al, wood or con­crete sur­faces. After using it, the paint will peel off in lay­ers. The remain­ing dirt can be removed with a spat­u­la, after which the treat­ed area should be washed with water.

Acrylic is removed from linoleum with a knife. The main thing is a care­ful impact, since scratch­es can remain on this mate­r­i­al. It is not rec­om­mend­ed to use strong aggres­sive sub­stances on linoleum.

The same applies to tiles: acrylic can be scraped off its sur­face with a knife, blade or scraper. Avoid scratch­es.

How to remove acrylic from carpet

If the acrylic stain is fresh, rinse it with plain water and wipe it with a rag. In this case, the move­ments should be care­ful, smooth — with strong pres­sure, the paint will only pen­e­trate deep­er into the pile, and the stain will increase in size.

If the stain is already old, you should use a sol­vent.

How to remove acrylic from clothes

Remov­ing acrylic from clothes is more dif­fi­cult because the fab­ric has a porous struc­ture. You can use a glass clean­er. With fresh con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, you can blot the stain with a nap­kin, then moist­en the sponge in the sol­vent and remove the remain­ing acrylic. Cloth­ing must be turned inside out.

For an old stain, you can rub ace­tone into the stain, and then wash the clothes in the wash­ing machine as usu­al.

Heat­ing is also effec­tive — for exam­ple, if you walk on the sur­face of the clothes with an iron with the steam func­tion turned on, you can even elim­i­nate old sur­faces.

What to do if the paint stained the car

It is bet­ter to remove the paint from the sur­face of the car before it dries. It is enough to fill a buck­et of warm water, pour in a lit­tle dish­wash­ing deter­gent or sham­poo. Next, soak a soft sponge in the solu­tion and gen­tly swipe it over the sur­face.

If the stain is already dry, chem­i­cal sol­vents are need­ed. Aggres­sive means can­not be used. You can use ace­tone, which removes paint from plas­tic and met­al, as well as from fab­ric. After the top lay­er is soft­ened, it is nec­es­sary to scrape off the remain­ing paint using a brush.

Anoth­er option is to apply white spir­it to the sur­face of the stain and leave the prod­uct for 15 min­utes, then wipe it with a sponge. If the glass is dirty, it is enough to walk on its sur­face with a thin blade. Rough scrap­ers must not be used.

You can also use these tools:

1. Clay for clean­ing. The com­po­si­tion of the prod­uct includes a cleans­ing spray and abra­sive com­po­nents. After treat­ing the stain, apply pol­ish­ing wax to the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed area.
2. Brake clean­er. It is nec­es­sary to moist­en a rag with a solu­tion and care­ful­ly draw over the acrylic stain.
3. Scratch paste. It is nec­es­sary to apply it to a porous cloth and wipe the sur­face of the car with it. Move­ments should be smooth and care­ful.

Thus, in the case of acrylic, the main thing is to try to remove the stain in the first 60 min­utes after con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the sur­face. To remove dried paint, you will have to use either aggres­sive sub­stances or sharp objects.