Easily Remove Dried Paint Stains With This Common Household Staple

Whether you're selecting the right paint finish for your furniture or attempting to liven up your home, paint stains can get the best of us. When you're a connoisseur of home design, staining your clothes with paint is inevitable. While we typically wear old and forgotten clothes during the paint job, life is messy. Sometimes paint can transfer over, dry quickly, and leave our favorite pieces of clothing dried with paint. Luckily, according to experts, there are ways to remove dried paint stains from our clothes with a simple household item: rubbing alcohol.

Before getting started, it's important to identify what type of paint is the culprit. For example, latex paint is commonly used for interior and exterior surfaces, much like acrylic paint. Latex and acrylic paint are water-soluble and easier to wash out than other paint types — these paints are most responsive to rubbing alcohol. On the other hand, oil paint is significantly more stubborn and requires a more aggressive treatment that can't be achieved through rubbing alcohol.

To get started, the most popular household item for removing paint stains is easy to find: rubbing alcohol. If you don't have rubbing alcohol around, any alcohol-based disinfectant should do a similar trick. Using the alcohol, soak the paint stain. You may do this in the sink or tub for any paint residue to wash out efficiently. You can also use a squirt of hand sanitizer or mist the material with aerosol hairspray (or nail polish remover as an alternative). Once the material has been soaked for a few minutes, use a toothbrush to scrub off any remaining paint.

While rubbing alcohol should likely remove most latex and acrylic paint stains, sometimes the material can be stubborn. If that's the case, create a mixture of rubbing alcohol, baking soda, and water until its consistency becomes a paste. Using an applicator, place the paste on each targeted area and allow it to dry. The paste should be gentle enough to maintain the clothing's material while lifting the dried paint stains efficiently. After 10 to 15 minutes, use warm water to remove any remnants of the alcohol-baking soda-water paste.

Rubbing alcohol works as a paint-removing agent for several reasons, the likes of which are almost endless. The chemical compound in rubbing alcohol, also known as isopropyl alcohol, is great for paint thinning, especially when it comes to heavy acrylic colors. For paint that has dried over time, rubbing alcohol liquifies the old paint and seamlessly lifts it from clothing, walls, and mirrors. 

Speaking of delicate surfaces, one of rubbing alcohol's many strengths is its ability to treat paint stains without damaging sensitive material. Whether your stain is wax, latex, paint bubbles, or silicone oil when met with alcohol, a chemical reaction will occur, lifting the paint from its surface. There are, however, a few materials you should never clean with rubbing alcohol, such as leather and colored fabrics. Be careful about using rubbing alcohol effectively — when you do, the results will be well worth it.