Hi there! I just wanted to do a quick post on doll clothing pen stain removal, because we recently struggled with this.

😦 Cry face.

We had a doll t-shirt that was ruined. Someone had written what I believe are the doll’s names on the shirt with permanent marker. So that was fun. Removing it was not fun.

I immediately hit Pinterest. Unlucky for us, this stain had been there for a VERY long time. That meant that it had plenty of time to set in. Lucky for us, doll clothing does not go in the dryer, so it wasn’t heat set in.

Here is everything that I had in my arsenal to use to try to remove the stain.

-Hairspray

-Nailpolish Remover

-All Purpose stain remover (Shout it out)

-Rubbing Alcohol

Okay, first things first. Any of these products all by themselves did a whole lot of nothing. Remember, the stain was heavily set in there. It didn’t want to budge. After a whole lot of scrubbing, and soaking with rubbing alcohol, tiny parts of the stain began to disappear, but this was not heartening.

I scrubbed and soaked and scrubbed and soaked for days with very slim results. I was also starting to see that all the scrubbing was beginning to fade the actual colour of the shirt. Really? The shirt colour was coming out, but the stain was not? Grrrrrr……

Back to the almighty Internet I went. I found a site that mentioned that liquid dish soap could be used. I was skeptical. After all, what did dish soap have that rivalled rubbing alcohol, the potent stuff of devils?

I didn’t care. By that time I was kinda desperate. You start to re-evaluate your life at this point, because you wonder how on earth you came to a place where getting a stain out of a doll shirt consumes your ever waking thoughts. Why??????

Anyway, what ended up working, and what I should have just done in the very first place was to soak the shirt in rubbing alcohol. Then, without rinsing out the alcohol, use Dawn dish detergent to scrub off the stain. I began to see results in minutes. It still took a lot of scrubbing, but it was actually working which was motivation in itself.

Oh joy! You mean no more sleepless nights? LOL!

So don’t despair. If you are ever in a situation where some wanton permanent marker makes its way onto your precious little doll garments, just do what I did.

Although, it’s probably best to skip all of the late nights, and the morphing into some kind of stain removal creature from the Black Lagoon. 😛

Isn’t she pretty?

It’s not perfect. There are still some very light marks, and some fading, but all in all, it worked better than I hoped. At least the shirt isn’t garbage.

I’m sure if the stain was newer, or if I didn’t scrub so hard in the first place with products that weren’t working, this would have been a far better result.

Julie likes it! 🙂

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Have you ever had this happen to you? Got any good tips and tricks for stain removal?

(Oh, and girls out there, please don’t draw on your dolls, or your doll clothing. It will make your mother crazy. For real. Unless that is the goal. In my house, I’m starting to think it is the master plan.) 😉

Leave a comment below!

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