Like to chew gum most of the time? Cool. But how to get the dreaded gum off your clothes when you’ve got chewing gum all over your clothes?
Don’t worry.
There are many tricks and techniques by which you can remove gum from clothes. E.g. – you can use rubbing alcohol, or make use of peanut butter, or warm white vinegar, or laundry soap, even hair spray, duct tape, and label remover spray.
Does it end here?
No, no, you can do ironing, freezing (yes, even ice cubes help), or boiling, etc. to get the gum off.
Sounds promising?
Let’s find out some effective ways on how to remove chewing gum from clothes. Shall we?
Stepwise, we check out some dependable ways and means of chewing gum remover.
1. Freezing
- Fold the garment in such a way that the chewing gum is facing outwards. This way you can see the gum too.
- Put the garment in a plastic bag. See to it that the gum doesn’t stick to the plastic bag. If you think you don’t know how to prevent the gum from sticking to the bag, no worries. Place the gum on top of the bag. Simple!
- Time to seal the bag.
- Now put the bag in the freezer for few hours. Idea is to FREEZE THE GUM. The time taken to do so depends on the size of the garment
- Take the plastic bag containing the gum on the cloth out of the freezer
- Using an old knife (or butter knife), peel off the gum from the garment taken out of the freezer
2. Boiling
- Put the cloth area having gum on it in boiling water.
- Now scrape off the chewing gum using a toothbrush, knife or putty knife.
- Scrub the fabric with the tools mentioned (toothbrush, etc.) while it is still in boiling hot water
- Allow the garment to dry
- Then repeat it as necessary
- Kettle is also an option you can consider for chewing gum remover. For this, boil some water in a kettle. Place the garment having the stuck chewing gum directly on the mouth of the kettle. The steam hits the gum directly. Leave it for a minute so that the steam softens the chewing gum. Scrub it with a toothbrush to remove the gum.
3. Rubbing Alcohol
- The beauty of rubbing alcohol chewing gum remover is that it doesn’t stain or remove color from fabrics. Doesn’t it put your worries to rest?
- Pour a few drops of rubbing alcohol on a sponge.
- Rub this sponge of rubbing alcohol on the chewing gum stuck on the fabric.
- Wait for few minutes.
- Using a spatula, attack the chewing gum on the fabric gently. You will find gum removal easy.
- Now soak the area with some fabric softener (preferably scented)
- If you so wish, wash the treated fabric with soap and water and then leave it to dry.
4. Label Remover
- First of all, you need a Label Remover Spray. Servisol Label Remover 130 is good to spray on the area containing chewing gum.
- Leave it for a minute. After all, to remove chewing gum from clothes takes a bit of time, isn’t it?
- Get a fine brass wire brush to brush out the stuck gum. You will find the gum coming out in no time.
- Apply some soap to the area. Then rinse out the label remover.
- If you are unsure of this technique, test it out on a piece of rag first.
5. Ironing
- Put the affected garment on top of a cardboard. See to it that the gum is between the cardboard and garment.
- Iron the affected area(s) on a medium setting. The intention is that the gum gets transferred from the garment to the cardboard.
- Keep repeating this methodology of gum removal from the fabric till it gets removed.
- Follow it up by washing the garment in a washing machine or hand-wash.
6. Peanut Butter
- Spread peanut butter not on the bread loaf this time, but on the gum stuck up on your garment.
- Cover the gum with as much peanut butter as possible
- In case the peanut butter leaves a stain, use a liquid stain remover to remove the oil stains left by it.
- Now scrape the gum with a blunt knife
- Wait until the gum loses its stickiness on the fabric and dislodges itself
- Scraping the gum off the clothing will now be easier. Use a stain remover on the “gummy” area, scrub it a bit and then launder it as usual.
7. Vinegar
- Take a cup of vinegar. It’s a good technique to remove gum from clothes.
- Heat vinegar in the microwave or on the cooking stove.
- Bring it to below a boil.
- Dip a toothbrush in the hot vinegar.
- Now rub the stuck gum with the vinegar-dipped toothbrush.
- Do this quickly as vinegar works best when hot.
- Keep doing the dipping-and-rubbing technique until the chewing gum is gone for good.
- Then wash the garment to remove the vinegar smell.
8. Liquid Laundry Soap
- Another way of how to remove chewing gum from clothes is to make use of liquid laundry soap.
- For this, you need to spray liquid laundry soap on the garment affected by gum.
- Use toothbrush to work the laundry soap on the gum. This will help in breaking the gum.
- Pick a blunt knife and scrape away the gum.
- Then make use of your fingernails to scrape off the remaining gum glued on the fabric.
- Wash the garment now in the laundry machine.
9. Goof Off
- Firstly, get some goof-off. This is a heavy-duty stain and spot remover. Where to get it, you must be wondering? It is available at most hardware/grocery/drug/department stores and even online. “Goo Gone” is the name of the product which works very well in such situations.
- Spray a little Goof Off on the affected area with gum (make sure it doesn’t remove colour).
- Then scrape it off with a butter knife.
- Get a paper towel to remove the remaining residue of the chewing gum.
- Put the garment outside so that Goof Off evaporates completely.
10. Hair Spray
- This procedure to remove chewing gum from clothes is fairly easy.
- All you need to do is spray a small amount of hair spray on the chewing gum.
- The hair spray will harden the gum.
- Now pick the gum off or scrape it immediately.
- Wash the cloth as normal.
11. Duct Tape
- Cut a strip of duct tape from the tape roll.
- Press the cut duct tape on the gum stuck on your cloth.
- Peel off the taped area. Meaning remove the gum from duct tape.
- Repeat it till the gum gets removed.
12. Lanacane Method
- Remove the chewing gum as much as you can from the garment (on which it is stuck).
- Now apply some Lanacane to the gum. Lanacane can be bought at the drug or grocery stores. It is a group of chemicals – Ethanol, Isobutane, Glycol and Acetate, all of them collectively speed up the release of the gum from the fabric or cloth.
- Wait for 30 seconds
- Using a blunt knife (one with a good edge), scrape off the gum.
- Wash the cloth (as desired).
13. Gasoline (Petrol)
- Apply some gasoline on the cloth where the gum is stuck. Did you know, gasoline or petrol dissolves the gum? Use just little bit of gasoline since it is flammable and therefore hazardous.
- Scrape off the excess gum on the cloth with a knife, putty knife or toothbrush.
- Soak the cloth and then wash (as per the normal laundry instructions)
- DON’T HAVE GASOLINE? Then use LIGHTER FLUID instead. It is a fluid which comes in a can used to fill cigarette lighters of old style.
14. Orange Oil
- In this solution remedy to remove gum from clothes, use orange oil extract (commercially available) which is made from orange peels.
- Apply a small amount of orange oil on a sponge.
- Then, rub it gently on the patch where the chewing gum is stuck.
- Use a blunt knife to scrape the gum off.
- Follow it up washing the cloth.
15. WD40
- This is the last technique on how to remove chewing gum from clothes.
- Just spray some WD40 on the chewing gum area on the fabric.
- Rub off the gum with a toothbrush.
- Then wash as usual.
I hope you found your trick to remove chewing gum from clothes.
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Feel free to write any more tricks that you have to remove gum from clothes.
Images Source: wikihow