Stained dress

Once again, life has provided me with an opportunity to research how to remove some obscure stain. This time, it’s how to remove art pastel stains from clothes.

(Aren’t you happy that we’re such a messy family? Because chances are, if you’ve found this web page through a search engine, your family is messy, too! Like they say, find the silver lining. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. No, wait. We’d probably spill the lemonade on ourselves, and then I’d be researching how to remove that stain, too!)

This stain comes to us compliments of our family outing jar. On Sunday, we pulled the following outing from our jar: Do an art project together as a family. I had recently seen this post on how to color a butterfly with oil pastels from Rob at Art for Kids, and this was the perfect opportunity to give it a try. (Don’t worry, Rob. I don’t blame you for the stain, especially because I was able to remove it so easily!) But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Butterfly pictures

We made these beautiful butterflies together, and no one got a stain on themselves. No one. The problem came this morning, when one of my children decided to pick up the art pastels I left out on the counter to make another picture. Only this time, she did get a stain. Several stains, actually. And this time, she was wearing a brand-new Gymboree dress.

As soon as I discovered the stain, I rushed to my computer to find a solution. I came across these helpful tips from Crayola:

Stained dress

Step 1 – Remove as much art pastel from the clothing as possible.

Dress blotted with rubbing alcohol

Step 2 – Blot the stain with rubbing alcohol.

Dress with dishwashing liquid

Step 3 – Rub any remaining stain with a healthy dose of dishwashing liquid. (I just added the “healthy dose” part. I wanted to be “certain sure” to get this stain out, since we hardly ever buy a new dress from Gymboree, and I want it to last!)

Step 4 – Wash as usual.

Clean dress

As you can see, the stain is completely gone!

Stained sweater

I had plenty of opportunity to practice my newfound stain-fighting skills, since said child also got art pastel stains all over her cream sweater. (Granted, it’s not a brand-new Gymboree sweater; I bought this one at Goodwill for $2.50, but I still like it, and I’d rather it last a little longer. We’ve since had a calm discussion about not wearing nice clothes when creating art with pastels…something you might want to include in your post, Rob. I’m just sayin’!) 🙂

Sweater dabbed with rubbing alcohol

The blotting with rubbing alcohol yielded minimal results, but being the ever-faithful instruction follower, I plunged ahead with step 3 and then promptly dropped the sweater in the laundry.

Clean sweater

The results speak for themselves.

So the next time you or a loved one decides to experiment with art pastels and you forget to wear an art smock, never fear, because now you know how to remove art pastel stains from clothes. You’re welcome! 🙂