How to Remove Sharpie from All the Things

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There’s a little something floating around Pinterest that tells you all the magical ways to remove permanent (Sharpie) marker from different surfaces. It looked like just the thing for the Pinterest Busters to test.

Removing Sharpie from clothing using hand sanitizer?

One of our Pinterest Busters drew a llama on a shirt and attempted to kill it with hand sanitizer.
Even after rubbing AND rinsing in water, all it did was blur the edges of Ms. Llama. We all agreed that although this was quite artistic, it did not look good for the hand-sanitizer-attacks-sharpie theory.

Removing Sharpie from walls with toothpaste or hairspray?

Kids get so excited when you say “Hey, grab that Sharpie and draw on the wall, okay?”

Then you say “spray some hairspray on it” and the ink runs down the wall.

Then you tell them to smear toothpaste all over the other drawing…and they get all giggly.

Then you use some elbow grease with more toothpaste and more hairspray…

Eventually you use enough elbow grease that you get the images to fade pretty darn good.

However…you also realize you’ve taken off paint at the same time. So, I mean, take that for what it’s worth.

Removing sharpie from furniture with rubbing alcohol or milk?

As you can see in the Pinterest image at the beginning of this post, wood is notated differently than furniture. All our Pinterest Busters wondered what exactly “furniture” meant. Was it wood furniture? Leather furniture? Upholstered furniture? Plastic furniture? We opted to test both rubbing alcohol and milk on the table top…because (at first) Sharpie ended up there without us planning to put it there.

The sharpie bled through from the llama on the t-shirt…

And the rubbing alcohol took it right off!

Then a certain Pinterest Buster got silly, and drew a smiley on the table…

Removing sharpie with milk and rubbing alcohol, does it work?

…poured milk over it…

…and scrubbed it out!

Removing Sharpie from carpet with white vinegar?

A Buster went to work drawing a lovely good guy bad guy scene on a little rug…

…and the white vinegar did nothing but smear stuff that scene around, no matter how hard we tried.

Removing Sharpie from a dry erase board with dry erase markers?

First, use Sharpies to put some random artwork on the dry erase board.

Second, cover the artwork with dry erase marker scribbles.

Thirdly, erase everything. It really comes right off. For reals!

End result? The Pinterest Busters found that most claims for the hard surfaces turned out to be true, while the things that supposedly worked on fabric items did not work.

The Pinterest Busters also found that it is a lot of fun when someone hands you a Sharpie marker and basically says, “Wreck this, we’re going to try and fix it. And it’s okay if we can’t.”