No matter how many times you explain to a toddler that “we draw on paper only”, it’ll, most likely, never be enough. Sooner or later they’ll decide that some other surface in your home is the perfect spot for their next impromptu masterpiece. In this case, Big Sister’s comforter looked like the ideal canvas to her renegade, two-year-old sibling, and instead of something less messy like a crayon or pencil, she happened to be wielding a blue pen that should have been well out of her reach at the time.
Unfortunate for the grown-ups involved, she did find the pen, remove the cap, and proceed to write or draw for long enough to make quite a big mess. As you can see from the image above, the blue ink was used to mark up a significant amount of space on the bright white bed comforter. For many people this type of ink stain would be a devastating occurrence, but thanks to the method we used to remove it, the comforter came completely clean in just a few steps.
Ballpoint pen ink is typically composed of several key ingredients that work together to create a smooth and reliable writing experience. The exact composition can vary slightly depending on the manufacturer and the specific type of pen, but the main components of ballpoint pen ink include:
Rich in pigment, this colorful liquid saturates and bonds with a variety of materials, and it can quickly stain fabrics in particular. Water based inks will be easier to remove than oil based ones, but any type is notorious for creating bright colored messes that can’t be removed. Although the bond with cotton and other fabrics is immediate, it becomes even stronger after setting in for a period of time. For most people, an ink stain will be one of the worst types they encounter.
Ink stains bedding, clothing and other fabrics because ink contains pigments, dyes, and additional chemicals that are designed to adhere to surfaces. When ink comes into contact with fabric, it can penetrate the fibers and create a lasting mark. Several factors contribute to why ink stains on comforters and other fabrics are so bad, and so difficult to clean:
For best results, you should always tackle an ink stain as quickly as possible. Fresh pigment will be way easier to remove than ink that has been washed in place, or allowed to soak in for days, weeks or more.
The method detailed below will completely remove an ink stain with little effort, but it does require a specific cleaner, so we’ll also offer several other options first. We’d never recommend these other options as the ideal solution, but many people may want to try something right away, and depending on the severity of the stain, less effective methods may be adequate for some situations.
To skip to the best option and see the stain disappear with ease, just scroll down, but to read up on some home remedies and traditional solutions for ink stains on fabric, check out the list that follows.
If you don’t have Quick N Brite on hand, a solvent like rubbing alcohol will be your best option for removing an ink stain on clothing, comforters, upholstery and other fabrics. Rubbing alcohol can be incompatible with some synthetic fabrics, but for most cases, it’s pretty safe and fairly effective. Most people will have rubbing alcohol on hand already, and if the affected area is not too big, it can make the perfect option to quickly clean the mess.
When using rubbing alcohol to clean an ink stain on a comforter or some other fabric, make sure to test it in a small, inconspicuous spot. The same power that makes it able to work can also harm certain materials. Try it on a small area first, and then move on to remove the whole stain.
Because many common inks are oil based, adding some liquid soap to the alcohol solvent can help cut through the oily stain and loosen the bond it has with the fabric. To supercharge your rubbing alcohol home remedy, just add some dish soap to it. Ink stains that won’t budge with rubbing alcohol alone, may clean completely when you add in some extra cleaning power.
Because this cleaning solution also contains rubbing alcohol, you should take the same precaution as noted above. Test the mixture on a small spot before trying to remove the whole ink stain from your comforter.
Another common household solvent, this works similar to the alcohol to break down and dissolve the pigment bonded to the stained clothing, bedding, furniture or upholstery. You do run a risk of damaging the material when you clean with nail polish remover, but it can also dissolve ink stains that other options don’t work on. Most households will already have some on hand, so it can be a good home remedy to try right away.
Be careful when using nail polish remover to clean ink stains because it can be harmful to certain fabrics and surfaces. try a small amount first, and if you get good results in a safe way, continue with the rest of the ink stain.
Mixing a solution of equal parts laundry detergent and lemon juice could be the perfect home remedy to remove an ink stain from a piece of clothing, or from your bedding. This method does require thorough rinsing due to the mixture, so it’s best used on things that can be laundered or rinsed from back to front. This mixture is one of the most gentle ways to tackle this job, so it’s perfect for delicate fabrics. If you want a safe and natural solution to remove the blue ink, detergent and lemon juice may be a good choice.
If you want to start with a gentle option first, or if the stain is only light, then a lemon juice and laundry detergent mixture may do the trick. You can try it without any worry, so it’s a great option when trying to start the job right away. With a little effort, you should be able to clean an ink stain, or at least lighten it, with this simple and effective home remedy.
Although the options above are widely recommended, no one would ever guarantee the results when using any of them. That’s because none of them are fool-proof, and none of them will work 100% of the time, and on a wide variety of ink stains and other messes.
When ink gets into any fabric it can be pretty tough to get it out, and if it’s permanent, you probably have no chance at all, no matter what you use. If you have staining from a pen, or a spot from water-based ink used in a craft project, then the above options could be a great choice when cleaning the mess on clothing, bedding or furniture.
If you prefer to guarantee that the stain disappears with as little effort as possible, continue reading to check out the incredible results achieved by using our recommended cleaning method.
Quick N Brite is one of the best cleaners available when it comes to removing stains on clothing and other fabrics. It’s incredibly safe, and amazingly effective, and it’ll eliminate any signs of ball-point pen ink from any surface it ends up on. You can use it to remove the stain completely, or you can use it as a stain pre-treater before you place clothes into the laundry.
In this example we’ll show how both techniques work, and because there are advantages and disadvantages to either, you’ll want to choose the method that makes the most sense for your specific situation.
In tutorial that follows, the comforter being cleaned is a microfiber blend, but you’ll be able to use the same technique with cotton and other fabrics too. In the same way that we easily lift the blue ink off the white comforter, you could easily clean a shirt pocket or pair of pants with accidental ink damage.
There’s no bleach or peroxide involved, so the material being cleaned doesn’t have to be white, and you can expect the same results no matter what color the fabric is. The blue on white in this case does give the stain a dramatic appearance, and it also helps to show how powerful the cleaner is without any risk to the material.
Take a good look at our ink stain. A collection of blue scribbles is covering a large area on the top surface of the white bed comforter. Although the stain is still pretty fresh, the ink was NOT applied lightly, so it’s deeply embedded, and totally bonded with the fabric.
When looking at the large blue ink stain, you can see that there is heavy staining on the right side, and lighter coverage on the left side. In the example that follows, we will completely clean the ink from the right side, and then pre-treat the left side so that it comes clean in the laundry.
If you want to try this technique to remove a similar stain from clothing, upholstery, carpet or other fabrics, there’s only as couple of things you’ll need.
Before you begin, make sure you have a good working surface, then spread the stained clothing or fabric out, so that the surface is flat and easily cleanable. You may want to place an additional towel behind the material being cleaned to catch any excess moisture that transfers through, but it won’t be necessary in all cases. Once you have the stained item ready, gather your supplies to prepare for cleaning.
To begin cleaning, take a terry cloth towel and get a portion of it damp. Use warm or hot water, and avoid soaking to the point of dripping. Once the towel is ready, dip into the tub of cleaner and collect a good amount of paste.
Rub the cloth over the stain to apply the cleaner. Get more cleaner if necessary, and continue applying it until the stained surface is completely covered.
Once the cleaner is in place, use your fingernail to work it in. This will help to penetrate the cleaner into the ink stained fabric, and begin to loosen the pigment. In most cases, you can see the cleaner beginning to work right away. If you prefer to avoid using your fingers, you can also use a soft brush or something similar.
Continue scratching lightly over the entire surface of the stain, and ensure that all blue areas are covered with cleaner.
PLEASE NOTE: You do not need to scrub the surface or use any sort of vigorous action. Gently work the cleaner in for just a few seconds, but then allow the it time to work before expecting the stain to lift off completely.
Once the cleaner has been applied to all areas, just let it sit for 10 or more minutes. With tougher stains, you’ll want to let it sit longer, but for simple ones, you can usually proceed to the next step right away.
As you let the cleaner rests in place, it’ll break down the ink stain, release it’s bond with the comforter fabric, and begin to float it gently off the surface so it’s easy for you to clean. For this step in our example, we let the cleaner sit for about 5-10 minutes, but you can let it sit longer if your stain is worse.
Once the cleaner has had time to work, take a clean portion of your towel, and begin to rub the area clean. A gentle buffing action will lift off the cleaner, and transfer any loose ink onto the towel.
You don’t need to scrub hard, or work the comforter fabric in any way, just gently blot and rub to remove the ink that the cleaner has loosened up.
Once the entire area has been buffed clean, most or all of the blue ink stain should be lifted. In this case, the stain was significantly lightened with a single application, but many faint pen lines were still obviously visible on the surface of the comforter.
If we had let the cleaner sit for a longer period of time initially, more of the stain may have lifted off with this first application, but a quick repeat of the previous steps will easily clean any remaining ink whenever one time is not enough.
Taking a closer look at the ink left over, you can see that the center of the stain has mostly disappeared, but some of the lines around the exterior still remain fairly prominent in appearance.
In order to remove any small spots of ball point ink stain that still remain after the first application, just apply the cleaner again, the same way you did the first time. Depending on how well the first round went, you can adjust the amount of cleaner you apply, how well you work it into the material, and how long you let it sit in order to improve your results with this second application.
Once the cleaner is in place, you’ll want to let it sit again.
Notice the untouched areas circled in red above. This area has not been treated with any cleaner thus far, but we will use it to demonstrate the power of this cleaner as a pre-treater after the larger stain is removed.
After you let the cleaner work for another ten minutes or so, use your towel to buff the area clean. A gentle action will lift off the loosened stain, and transfer it from the comforter to the towel.
In our case, a second application made all of the lines vanish, but if you looked close enough you could still see a light blue haze over the area, and a few random marks to indicate where the heavy scribbles used to be.
Pulling back to take a look at the whole surface of the comforter, you can see that the terrible stain has been removed, but you can also see that two obvious areas of blue ink still remain.
The ink in areas 1 and 2 will be eliminated by treating with cleaner and then laundering, but the faint stain that remains in area 3 will be removed with a third application to prove that a tough ink stain can be completely lifted in a matter of minutes by using this powerful cleaner alone.
Based on how much cleaner had already been applied, and how little stain was left, we could have just tossed the comforter into the wash to finish the job, but for the main portion of the stain, we applied a third coat of cleaner in order to make the faint remnants of the ink stain disappear completely.
If you need to apply a third round in order to completely clean a stain, just repeat using the same technique as the two previous attempts. Make sure to coat thoroughly, work it in, and then let it sit.
After waiting another few minutes to give the cleaner time to work, use your towel to buff the cleaner off, and remove any ink that was still in place.
Looking at the picture above, you can see that the area that used to have a dense collection of blue lines and scribbles is now completely white and clean again.
In this case, it did take three applications to do a thorough job, but ball-point pens can create some devastating stains, and we were able to completely eliminate the mess with little effort, and in a short amount of time.
Pulling back to take a wider look again, you can see just how clean the comforter is in the area where we spot-cleaned it. There are no blue marks left in the area where the cleaner was applied, but there is still a pretty large ink stain that we will now remove with a pre-treat and launder technique.
When an ink stain is small or light, you can be lazy and still eliminate the mess. A heavy stain like the one in the area that was spot cleaned may be too tough for the method that follows, but for a few lines, or some faint spots, a fast and simple pre-treating technique is plenty powerful enough to get the job done.
To prepare a stain to wash clean in the laundry, simply apply the cleaner so that any ink is completely covered by a thick coating of paste. In the picture above, you can see that the two spots with ink lines still in place are now coated and ready for cleaning in the washing machine.
A closer look gives you a better view of the two areas after being treated. The light stain on the top right, and the heavier one at center left are both ready to be placed into the washing machine for cleaning.
Once the ink stains are completely covered, work the cleaner in, and let it sit for several hours, or overnight. After sitting just launder like normal to get it clean.
After pulling the comforter from the dryer, the top line was totally gone, but the darker, more prominent ink lines were faded, but not invisible.
When looking closely, you could still see a few faint lines still remaining after a single treatment and washing. In this case, we just took some paste to quickly eliminate the marks leftover, but you could also treat and wash again to save effort.
In the picture above you can see the dramatic results that we achieved. In just a few easy steps, we were able to take a heavily ink stained area, and make it bright white again. The side-by-side photo above shows a close up view of the heavily stained area before we began, and on the right, you can see the same area after the spot cleaning and a single washing. The ink stain has been totally lifted, the microfiber comforter is completely clean, and it looks like nothing ever happened.
The photo above shows another angle, and it allows you to see the whole comforter before and after it was cleaned. This side-by-side photo also includes the culprit of the caper, and although she was proud of the artwork originally created, she was also happy that Mommy and Daddy were able to get it clean.
Ink stains are tough, and with most cleaners and methods, they can seem impossible to remove.
Using Quick N Brite, we were able to completely remove any signs of the ink, and it only took a few minutes of effort to accomplish. If cleaning this same stain again, a slight modification would probably result in a shorter duration and fewer steps, without compromising the end results, so feel free to modify the technique for your situation.
No amount of excess cleaner will harm the fabric, and it will be safe and effective on any type of natural or synthetic fibers.
The great thing about this gentle and effective cleaner is that it will almost always work. When a single application does not provide the level of results expected, a second or third application will usually do the trick. When build-up is extra thick, or when staining is more severe, it may only pull off the first layer with a single application, but when you repeat the steps, you can easily come back and remove subsequent layers until no stain remains.
Never worry about an exploded pen or rouge child again because ink stains can be easy to handle when you do it the right way. You’ll always want to get cleaning as soon as possible to make the job easy, but unlike other options, Quick N Brite will even work on old stains, washed-in stains, or stains left over after you have tried one or more other options. The next time you have blue or black ink covering a piece of clothing, bedding or furniture, try the steps above to avoid disaster, and eliminate the mess easily.
Tip Contents
Picture this: Your little one has just finished a masterpiece, not on paper, but on…
Ah, hardwood floors—the crown jewels of home decor. They gleam with sophistication, echoing the footsteps…
Cleaning toilets is an essential task for maintaining a hygienic and pleasant bathroom environment. A…
Growing fruits and vegetables at home is a rewarding activity that provides fresh produce and…
Squirrels, particularly the ubiquitous gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), are a common sight in many gardens…
If you have a wet basement, then chances are you also have a sump pump…
View Comments
It always shocks me how effective nail polish remover is at this type of stuff. It can be a lifesaver!
I didn’t have quick and bright, but “spick and span” also worked wonders!!
Thank u for this beautiful information.
When combined with warm water, vinegar is a promising cleaning solution that may remove ink from bedspreads.