There may be no use crying over spilled milk, but spilled ink is a different story. Anybody who’s handled a leaking cartridge or has had an unfortunate experience while refilling their own knows how frustrating it is to remove ink from your hands or, even worse, your clothes or carpet. Luckily, if you get to the stain in time, you can manage to remove it completely by following these simple steps.
Printer ink stains are an unavoidable price that most of us will pay at some time or other for producing our printed documents. If you’ve experienced a printer ink spill before, you know how challenging it can be to remove from fabric, and how stubborn it is when trying to lift from the skin. The key is getting to the spill immediately. Once you do that, try some of the methods below to facilitate the removal of a printer ink stain.
How to Remove Ink from Your Hands
Cold water and soap will do the trick if you have nothing else, though this approach can be a little time consuming. Washing your hands with a gritty, abrasive soap will expedite the removal process. Hand sanitizer is also a useful tool for removing ink stains from the hand, as the alcohol in sanitizer is effective in breaking up the ink compounds.
Another household item you can use is glass cleaner to let the ammonia quickly dissolve the ink. Simply spray the cleaner on your hands, allow it to sit for a few seconds, then scrub off and wash your hands with regular soap.
How to Remove Ink from Fabric
One word of caution. If you use the wrong chemical or solution, your ink problem could worsen. Before taking any steps, make sure you read your fabric tag and follow any care guides given, before attempting to remove ink or toner stains. Also, if possible, test out your solution on a small part of the stained area first, to make sure you’re not expanding the problem.
Removing ink from fabric will prove a more difficult task than removing ink from your hands. To have a chance at success, it’s critical you treat the stain immediately. Also, remember to use cold water, since warm water will only serve to let the stain set in faster.
Dampen a clean cloth or sponge and dab the stained area with said cloth. Continue to do so until all ink particles have been lifted and your fabric has been left clean.
If you are unable to get to the stain immediately, one solution, that has proven to work on stains that have already set in, consists of two tablespoons of liquid detergent, three tablespoons of white vinegar, and one quart of warm water. Follow the same procedure as above, using this solution.
Removing Print Cartridge Stains from Clothing
First off, make sure you follow the same precautions stated above. If there is an ink stain on part of your clothing that is unseen when worn, try working on that area first, to make sure your solution is working properly.
A good way to start is by dabbing the affected area with a clean, damp cloth or towel until the ink ceases to lift off from the stain. After letting the stain air dry for a few minutes, spray the stain with hair spray or dab it with alcohol – whichever you happen to have on you – to loosen the ink’s grip on the fabric. Then, take two paper towels and sandwich the affected area of fabric. Blot the backside of the stained fabric to transfer the stain to the paper towel. Continue to press and as the stain is transferred to the paper towel, move the paper towel to ensure that a clean part of the towel gathers the stain and that it doesn’t re-transfer back to the fabric.
Removing Print Cartridge Stains from the Carpet
Begin by blotting the stain with a dry towel, working your way from the outside of the stain to the inside. Next, dampen a cotton towel with rubbing alcohol and continue to blot the area until the ink is lifted. If this fails to remove the strain, try using hydrogen peroxide on a cotton towel.
The key is to keep some of the above mentioned supplies on hand so if and when a spill occurs, you can act immediately to increase your chances of success. As a precautionary measure, it’s a good idea to keep the area surrounding your printer protected with newspaper or paper towels while changing out cartridges. If you’re refilling your own cartridges, be sure to use disposable gloves.
As we said at the top of this article, getting ink stains on our hands and fabrics, is an inevitable price we all pay when working with ink and toner. These simple steps should help alleviate that “cost of doing business”. Let us know if any of these steps worked for you or what you did to remove ink from your stain-affected areas.
Another “cost of doing business” is the price you pay for ink and toner replacement. You can cut that cost down dramatically with replacement cartridges from ldproducts.com!
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