How to wash a gel pen from various surfaces

Gor­geous ros­es on the wall­pa­per as a birth­day present for mom! Why not? Great idea. How to solve an unusu­al prob­lem with­out offend­ing the lit­tle donor? Glue a frame around the pic­ture and get a pic­ture for mem­o­ry.

But what if the strokes of a gel pen spoil the look of a white shirt, a light-col­ored sofa, or the leather uphol­stery of a car inte­ri­or? Don’t wor­ry, there is a solu­tion.

Why does a gel pen leave marks?

School and office sup­plies for writ­ing appeared rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly. The gel pen repeats the char­ac­ter­is­tic struc­ture of a ball­point, but at the same time it has fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ences.

The writ­ing knot is equipped with a ball, which is hid­den in a cone. The flow of ink starts auto­mat­i­cal­ly after the start of the rota­tion of the ball. A thin lay­er of dye envelops the ball and flows out, leav­ing marks on paper and oth­er things.

Gel-based ink has a very dense opaque struc­ture. The com­po­si­tion of the dye includes cop­per phthalo­cya­nine and iron oxides. The water-based gel also includes biopoly­mers (xan­than gum and gum tra­ga­canth) and thick­en­ers.

The col­or­ing com­po­si­tion of the ink may con­tain large par­ti­cles of moth­er-of-pearl, glit­ter and metal­lic dyes.

Among the gel-filled pens, there are anti-fraud inks. Nei­ther bleach­es nor sol­vents take them.

There is also a water­proof ink that can be washed off with water only before it dries. Next, you will have to use only chem­i­cal stain removal meth­ods.

Special stain removers

Espe­cial­ly for stub­born stains, man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­duce var­i­ous sprays that destroy the col­or­ing pig­ment. Here is some of them:

1. 
   Novo Pen Off. Instant liq­uid for remov­ing traces of mark­er, ink and tape. Pro­duced by Dr.Schnell. Sold in a 0.5 liter plas­tic bot­tle with sprayer. The aver­age price range is 700–10 dol­lars.

2. 
   Dia­mond. Means for dry clean­ing of traces of a mark­er, sty­lus, ink. Can­not be used on paint­ed sur­faces. A plas­tic con­tain­er with a vol­ume of 0.75 liters has a sprayer. Price — 740 rubles.

3. 
   Asana Uni­lan HT. Euro­pean-made clean­er for get­ting rid of ink stains. Sup­plied in a plas­tic con­tain­er. Does not have a sprayer. The aver­age price is 550–6 dol­lars.

4. Expert stain remover man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny Dr. Beck­mann. Removes traces of ink, ink, felt-tip pens. Price range — 150–380 rubles.

Household ink removal methods

A trace from the sim­plest pen can be removed with impro­vised means. Our task is to dis­solve the gel and wash off the pig­ment. Con­sid­er ways to remove stains from the fol­low­ing sur­faces:

1. the cloth;

2. leather;

3. paper, wall­pa­per;

4. fur­ni­ture uphol­stery.

From fabric

The most com­mon prob­lem for all moms and office work­ers is lines and ink stains on white shirts. Of course, not only white things suf­fer, but also col­ored ones, as well as jeans.

The main thing is not to put things off indef­i­nite­ly. If pos­si­ble, we imme­di­ate­ly go and erase. First of all, we use emer­gency assis­tance.

Sanitary alcohol-based hand gel

Now this tool is in every purse. If you acci­den­tal­ly touch your clothes while at the office or school, have hand san­i­tiz­er and wet wipes ready. Then do like this:

1. Apply the gel to the stain.

2. Wait 1–3 min­utes.

3. When the line los­es its shape, rub the place with wet wipes.

4. Lat­er, when you get home, wash the stained area with Fairy (dish­wash­ing deter­gent).

5. If pos­si­ble, wash the stain imme­di­ate­ly and dry the cloth­ing under a hand dry­er.

Hair spray

This tool is also often found in the office. There­fore, there should be no prob­lems with remov­ing ink strokes. As soon as you put a mark on the clothes, imme­di­ate­ly go for var­nish. Do this:

1. Spray the line with var­nish.

2. Wait for the line to turn into a blur.

3. Moist­en the cloth, drip liq­uid soap on top and rub the stain.

4. Wash the dirty place or rub it with a well-damp­ened cloth.

Alcohol

Not bad if alco­hol or a prod­uct based on it is at hand. For exam­ple, cologne or toi­let water. Also suit­able for any phar­ma­cy. The excep­tion is iodine and bril­liant green.

Moist­en a cot­ton pad with alco­hol and apply it to the ink. Wait 2 min­utes and wash the item. If you are at home, put the item in the wash­ing machine.

Nail polish remover

Dis­solves ink very well. But it can also per­fect­ly ruin col­ored, syn­thet­ic fab­ric or make a white spot on jeans.

If pos­si­ble, use this method only on white fab­rics, or test com­pat­i­bil­i­ty on an incon­spic­u­ous area first.

Apply the sol­vent to the stroke of the pen and wait for it to dis­solve. Scrub the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed area with your hands or with a soft brush. Wash off any remain­ing ink with warm soapy water.

Ammonia

The action of the drug is sim­i­lar to the list­ed sub­stances. Clear lines are blurred, but the dye does not dis­ap­pear. There­fore, the treat­ed area should be washed. Ammo­nia is suit­able for col­ored fab­rics and jeans. But, in order to avoid light­en­ing the fab­ric, we rec­om­mend that you test the effect of the chem­i­cal in an incon­spic­u­ous place.

How to remove a draw­ing with a pen:

1. Apply the prod­uct to the stain.

2. Wait­ing 1–2 min­utes

3. A lit­tle three with a tooth­brush or hands. We do this in order to blur the ink stain as much as pos­si­ble. There­fore, you can apply a lit­tle more funds.

4. We wash the item with soap and water. You can do it man­u­al­ly. You can wash clothes in the machine.

Fairy or laundry soap

You will get instant results if you can imme­di­ate­ly wet the stain and apply dish­wash­ing deter­gent to it. Laun­dry soap will give the same effect. Wet the dirt, apply laun­dry soap, rub the cloth and rinse it under run­ning water.

From the skin

It does not mat­ter how the stain appeared on leather uphol­stery or on your favorite bag. The ques­tion before us is how to wipe it off.

We can remove fresh traces using the fol­low­ing impro­vised means:

1. Lemon juice.

2. Alco­holic liq­uid.

3. Hair spray.

4. Hand cream.

5. Glyc­erol.

6. Tur­pen­tine.

7. Liq­uid deter­gent.

For work we need:

1. Cot­ton discs.

2. Water.

3. Clean wipes.

The method of appli­ca­tion for all sub­stances is the same:

1. We apply the prod­uct to the stain. You can just drip and dis­trib­ute. Can be applied with a cot­ton pad and left to act as a com­press.

2. Leave the prod­uct on the ink stain for a few min­utes. Some sub­stances can begin to act imme­di­ate­ly, oth­ers — after a few min­utes.

3. With a cot­ton pad, we begin to wipe off the traces of the pen. At the same time, you can soak a cot­ton swab with the same agent and rub gen­tly.

4. After the dis­ap­pear­ance of pol­lu­tion, wipe the skin with wet wipes.

In order to avoid dam­age to the col­or of the skin, to begin with We rec­om­mend try­ing the prod­ucts in an incon­spic­u­ous place.

The fresh­er the trace of paint, the eas­i­er it is to remove. There­fore, we offer a list of emer­gency response tools:

1. Alco­hol wipes for clean­ing mon­i­tors.

2. Hair spray.

3. Hand cream.

old foot­prints it is more dif­fi­cult to remove ink, there­fore, in these cas­es, indus­tri­al means show greater effi­cien­cy:

1. Expert stain remover from Dr Beck­mann. Removes stains from any sur­face, includ­ing leather, with­out dam­ag­ing its struc­ture.

2. Spray stain remover from Amway. Works well on all types of stains. Not rec­om­mend­ed for col­ored items.

3. Soap Antipy­atin. A cheap and effec­tive prod­uct that removes stains with­out dam­ag­ing the sur­face of prod­ucts.

4. Udal­ix Ultra. Pen­cil-stain remover for dif­fer­ent sur­faces. Removes all kinds of con­t­a­m­i­nants. Not rec­om­mend­ed for unsta­ble sur­faces.

5. Leather Stain Remover. Removes stains from all leather sur­faces.

6. Van­ish. Uni­ver­sal stain remover. Removes most known con­t­a­m­i­nants.

Leather as a nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al requires del­i­cate han­dling. There­fore, start­ing clean­ing, pay atten­tion to the fol­low­ing tips:

1. Gen­uine leather does not like water. There­fore, a min­i­mum of mois­ture should be used.

2. Dyed prod­ucts may light­en when exposed to active oxi­diz­ing agents. Do not use chlo­rine-con­tain­ing sub­stances.

3. The sur­face of the skin can be dam­aged by exces­sive fric­tion.

From wallpaper and paper

The pecu­liar­i­ties of paper are its absolute insta­bil­i­ty to get­ting wet and mechan­i­cal influ­ences. But, nev­er­the­less, there are sev­er­al ways to help remove traces of the gel pen from paper and wall­pa­per.

Mechanical erasure

The pro­posed option requires patience and dili­gence. But the result will be almost per­fect. To work, you will need a blade from a cler­i­cal knife and an eras­er.

Pro­ce­dure:

1. Take the blade close to the sharp end. You must con­trol the accu­ra­cy of the move­ments.

2. Start with light, super­fi­cial move­ments to clean off the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. Our goal is not to tear off the entire line, but to make the paper a lit­tle loose where the ink line is applied.

3. After pro­cess­ing the sur­face of the paper with a cler­i­cal knife, take an eras­er. You can use the soft side for pen­cils or the abra­sive side for eras­ing a pen.

4. With light, pre­cise move­ments, start rub­bing the area to be cleaned. We need to remove that thin lay­er that we lift­ed with a knife.

After a few train­ings, you will be able to per­form this spy trick with­out dif­fi­cul­ty.

Sim­i­lar results are shown the fol­low­ing mechan­i­cal meth­ods:

1. Rub­bing with very fine sand­pa­per.

2. Clean­ing with an abra­sive eras­er.

3. Remov­ing the top lay­er of paper by moist­en­ing and light­ly rub­bing with your fin­ger.

Chemical methods

There is one spy method that removes the mark from the pen with­out a trace. If you still have potas­si­um per­man­ganate in your first aid kit, then con­sid­er that you have won the bat­tle with ink stains.

We will need:

1. Acetic acid.

2. Sev­er­al crys­tals of potas­si­um per­man­ganate.

3. Hydro­gen per­ox­ide.

4. Tas­sel.

Sequenc­ing:

1. Let’s pre­pare the work­ing com­po­si­tion. In 1 tbsp. vine­gar essence, add a few crys­tals of per­man­ganate until a dark pink solu­tion is obtained.

2. With a brush, apply the com­po­si­tion to the line. It will imme­di­ate­ly begin to dis­ap­pear, instead a dirty pink spot will appear on the paper.

3. With a clean brush, we will treat the spots on the paper with hydro­gen per­ox­ide with a con­cen­tra­tion of 3%. The paper will be per­fect­ly white.

From upholstered furniture

Fur­ni­ture uphol­stery requires spe­cial han­dling due to the fact that it can­not be removed and washed. Spot removal involves the use of prod­ucts that do not require abun­dant rins­ing.

If pos­si­ble, before using an unknown prod­uct, always try to test it for com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the fab­ric. Active sub­stances can destroy not only the pig­ment of the pen paste, but also the fab­ric dye.

Ammonia

We rec­om­mend that you always have a bot­tle with a strong-smelling liq­uid on the farm. It helps out in many sit­u­a­tions, removes var­i­ous stains and dirt.

To remove draw­ings with a gel pen, you need to do the fol­low­ing:

1. Apply ammo­nia to the stains and rub them with a cloth.

2. If the pat­tern has dis­solved, put a drop of dish­wash­ing liq­uid on top and rub the fab­ric sur­face with a damp sponge.

3. Then rinse off excess soap with a clean sponge and pat dry with a dry tow­el.

In the same sequence, you can use the fol­low­ing tools at hand:

1. Hydro­gen per­ox­ide.

2. Lemon acid

3. A bowl of soda and water.

4. Vine­gar.

Hair spray

It is very con­ve­nient to use hair­spray as a quick response agent. It is enough to sprin­kle the stroke of the pen from the can and rub it with a cot­ton pad or nap­kin.

The next step is to light­ly scrub with a damp sponge with liq­uid soap and water.

Alcohol wipes

You can find these nap­kins in the sta­tionery depart­ments. They are designed to wipe mon­i­tors. For fresh traces of ink, this is a great tool. You can com­plete­ly remove the gel paste by sim­ply rub­bing the dirt with an alco­hol wipe.

Dishwashing liquid

If, imme­di­ate­ly after paint­ing on the sofa, wash this place with fairies, be sure that not a trace will remain. The only thing is to remove the deter­gent well with a clean cloth with water, oth­er­wise there will be stains on the uphol­stery.

Vanish

The Van­ish line offers all kinds of com­po­si­tions for any sit­u­a­tion. You can take Van­ish Oxi­Ac­tion uni­ver­sal stain remover (liq­uid) or uphol­stery clean­er.

To get rid of the stain, you need to pre­pare a prod­uct and a brush (you can use a tooth­brush). Next, apply the prod­uct to the dirt and rub with a brush. After 2–3 min­utes, traces of paint will dis­ap­pear. Remove bleach residue with a damp sponge. Amway’s Lock stain remover works sim­i­lar­ly.

Keep in mind that spot removal of stains on fur­ni­ture can lead to a glob­al clean­ing of the sofa. Even if the sofa does not seem dirty, it may have a coat­ing of dust. There­fore, when rub­bing off traces from the pen, you will get a lighter and brighter spot.

Know­ing the meth­ods of quick response, you can eas­i­ly keep your clothes and uphol­stery clean. You don’t have to wait for “bet­ter times”. The impro­vised and pro­fes­sion­al dry clean­ing prod­ucts offered by us will solve the prob­lem of ink stains once and for all.