Cleaning Tips For Belfast

How to clean paint from clothes

Normally when we're setting about some decorating that involves painting, we put on our oldest clothes that are ready for the bin. Sometimes you just can't help those splashes particularly if you're using a roller. But hey they're old clothes and who cares. Normally we use two types of paint in our houses, emulsion and gloss ( to some degree ). The walls and ceilings get the emulsion and the wood work like doors and skirting boards get the gloss. Now, the emulsion is water based so this usually just washes out of clothes, or off hands and running the brushes under the tap will clean them of the paint. However the gloss is another matter. This can be evil stuff, and it repels water so cleaning it off can be extremely difficult. Brushes and hands with gloss paint on need to be cleaned with white spirit or similar, and even then the cleaning effect is limited. What about when it gets on your clothes? You probably already know if you put your gloss painted clothes into the washing machine, the paint will be there just the same as when we put it in. Yes we wore our oldest painting clothes just in case, but what if your husband painted something and you leant on it by accident, ahem!

Well a little tip that was given to me was if you look close at the gloss paint spot on your clothes you will see it might well be raised up above the material. Let the paint dry fully over a day or so and then, depending on the garment, use a razor blade to gently shave away at the paint, layer by layer. You will be surprised how much you can get rid of.

If the paint has been spattered on rather than a big dollop, you can also try putting the affected area into a shallow bowl of white spirit and rub the paint away, you may need to change the white spirit should it become too discoloured with the paint. At the end of the day gloss paint will most likely ruin that garment, but these two tips might just help.