Felt tip pen removal from clothing

I have just received a package in the post this morning consisting of 3 old chaps in much need of repair, in addition to missing flock they have missing limbs and stress fractures so I will have fun restoring them.
Included also was a couple of items of screwed up clothing, one is a DAK jacket, unfortunately some one has applied fake blood stains with a red felt tip!

Is there any thing that works on felt tip stains? or should I just consider it scrap?

Any advice as always much appreciated as I like to make good and restore what I can.

Thanks

Paul

Hello Paul I'ts a bit of a tricky one depending on the type of ink thats on the clothes, the kids type felt pens are possibly water based and could possibly come out iff you put them throught the washing machine, this has its problems too and can damage the clothes and will possibly take off any ironed on badges that may be on the clothes but iff you have some clothes with pen on that are less valuable than others give them a try first, I have put white snow patrol jacket in washing machine because it was very dirty and it came out snow white, but I havn't tried to remove pen this way, I have heard a myth that hair spray does take out felt pen but again I havn't tried this but rather than scrap the clothes you could give these a try, let us know how you get on

Ian

try a soak in vanish gold !

Thanks for the replies. I had a google of removing felt tip stains and saw hair spray and surgical spirit suggested, and we have some Vanish Gold.

I have a scramble pilot flight suit that had been felt tipped and I could not shift it, despite trying Stain Devil felt tip remover, Vanish and putting it in the washer. I ended up dying it olive green.

I might try hair spray or surgical spirit as I did not have much luck with the methods above, and I have nothing to lose as the jacket is scrap anyway.

As we had some Vanish Gold I soaked the jacket over night last night, with impressive results.

The stain has 95% gone, just leaving a mark akin to a water mark.

I have left it soaking whilst I am at work today, and will put it in the washing machine tonight to see if the rseult can be improved.

The Vanish Gold seems to be better than a previous Vanish Oxy product which I tried to remove felt pen stains with on a previous occasion.

Nice find sounds like a pot of vanish gold will be needed in my VAM repair kit thanks for the info by the way how did the 2nd wash go did it improve the stain/watermark

Cheers Ian

In the end I chickened out of putting it in the washing machine, and just hand washed it in the sink.

The stain is still visible, certainly not 100% gone, perhaps 96% (excuse the random way of catergorising stains).

If the jacket had not been so pale and the stain so dark and expansive the results would have been more impressive. As it stands at the minute the front of the jacket was 25% covered in red felt pen. It now has a slightly pink patch, which with webbing across it would be obscured, not by any means perfect.

I will stick it in my random uniform cardboard box for when I run out of other projects (I still may stick it through the washer if feeling brave - late VAM uniforms seem so flimsy and fragile compared to the early stuff)

However, I must admit to being impressed with the stain removing properties of the Vanish Gold product given the previous failure I had using another Vanish product. I have a very shabby ski patrol smock and trousers that I am going to soak to see how it performs on white stuff.

great to see it all came out in the wash !

Nice one you nearly got it all out Didn't the old TV advert say "For those more stubbern stains use Flash"

Hawkeye wrote:

Nice one you nearly got it all out  Didn't the old TV advert say "For those more stubbern stains use Flash"

Also: "Flash cleans without scratching!" I think her name was Madge?