My keyboard is all decorated for Christmas. Dd took a red and green sharpie to it. Anyone know how to get it off?

By Brandy on Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 11:55 pm:

Try those new erasers everyone has been talking about lol actually i have no clue..

By Sovie on Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 02:35 am:

Maybe fingernail polish remover will work.

By Feona on Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 05:02 am:

Be careful with the fingernail polish remover...it may melt the plastic and take the letters off the keys.

In order of increasing risk of damage try:

Rubbing alcohol
Paint thinner (for enamel paint)
Goof Off (careful! may melt plastic!)
Lacquer thinner (careful! may melt plastic and remove letters)
Polish remover

Unfortunately sharpies are permanent markers and they really mean it

You'll probably destroy the keyboard in the process of trying to remove the marks so you might just want to live with your "decorations" unless you can afford another keyboard.

By Mommyathome on Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 10:43 pm:

Oh dear. That is not good. DS used a purple marker on our monitor the other day, thank goodness it was washable and it came right off. He also got a little bit of the keyboard, but we didn't notice for awhile because our keyboard is dark gray with black keys. I discovered it when my fingers were turning purple from typing LOL.

Definitely let us know if you find something to take off that sharpie.

By Bethk on Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 10:54 pm:

Try a baby. Honestly. Don't laugh, they really do work!

By Kate on Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 11:23 pm:

Ummm....Beth, do you mean a baby WIPE? I'm wracking my brain here!

By John on Friday, November 28, 2003 - 07:52 am:

Here's the word straight from sharpie:

http://www.sharpie.com/sanford/consumer/sharpie/home/faqs.jhtml?faqcode=1450

By Bethk on Friday, November 28, 2003 - 06:56 pm:

Yes that was supposed to be baby wipe! My mind has been on other things. Wipes work well on just about any stain!

By Daddyof3 on Friday, November 28, 2003 - 09:58 pm:

Try to find this stuff called spray 9 Amy uses it to get off lots of things. Also you can try goo gone.

By Momoffour on Friday, November 28, 2003 - 10:59 pm:

I had permanet marker on my seats in the car and I used hair spary. some of the marks came totaly off others faded alot. might try that

By Tunnia on Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 09:30 am:

Please post if you find anything that works. My ds decorated the housing of my sewing machine with a black permanent marker and I haven't found anything that works so far on the plastic. I am always amazed at the amount of damage my child can do in the time it takes to use the bathroom or answer the phone! *sigh*

BTW, I used milk and vinegar, alternately, to remove the permanent marker from my off-white couch (be sure to rinse very well if you use this method). I don't remember where I read that those items will work, but, to my surprise, they did work on the fabric.

By Insaneusmcwife on Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 10:08 am:

Thank you for all of your ideas. First I have to find my other keyboard before I take this one off and start taking the keys off...I can't be without my computer, lol. I'll let you know which one works the best.

By Ginny~moderator on Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 02:57 pm:

Caution about goofoff - see second thing I found on the internet:

From a secondary school science fair project:

Our study focusses on ways to remove permanent marker ink from various materials. This is a common problem in today's society, as Sharpie markers have become very popular. We scribbled permanent marker on the various types of materials (eg. hard plastic, jeans, nylon, etc.). To remove the stains we decided to use your everyday household cleaners (eg. hair spray, nail polish remover, shoe shampoo, ect.). A toothbrush was used along with the solvents to scrub out the stain. We timed how long it took to remove the stain. Our overall goal was to disprove the claims of the Sharpie Website, which claimed that the pen 'stays on permanently.'

Results confirmed our hypothesis, that it was possible to use common solvents to remove Sharpie stains. What became interesting was the speed at which each solvent worked, and its effectiveness. The most effective solvents were hairspray and nail polish. Each of these solvents contains a form of alcohol, so we concluded that the presence of alcohol influenced the efficiency of dissolving Sharpie ink.


From a web site for I don't know what, someone wanting to clean a plastic paint palette:
Just want to let you know what happened with the paint palettes. I think I told you that one of the products I tried was called "Goof Off"; while it did remove the Sharpie Marker it also melted the plastic.
>
>Well, today I actually got around to reading the can. It said to clean hard plastics use a product called "Goof Off 2" a water based product. So I jumped in the car and went to Walmart. They didn't have any of that product (of course) but they did have a product called "Oops Waterbased Remover & Cleaner" in the paint department that promised to
clean marker, for about $3.
>
>So got home with it and it did indeed clean away all the Sharpie Marker. It cleaned away some of the paint stain but not all.

By Insaneusmcwife on Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 04:04 pm:

Thank you for the warning Ginny, I think I will skip the goofoff.

By Insaneusmcwife on Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 05:53 pm:

OK, I was told Gunny's Wife to take a dry erase marker to the spots were the Sharpie marks were and then it should wipe off. WRONG! If it wasn't permanent before it is now in the spot where I tried it. So, Dh and I sat down and tried the baby wipe thing. We took off about half of the keys and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. It was working but taking for ever to do just one key and it wasn't really coming off all the way. Got tired of doing that so I got out the rubbing alcohol and Q-tips. Well, that worked about as good as the baby wipes, just faster. You can tell she took marker to it but it is really faded now so it is livable. Atleast we can see the keys now. I want to go get one of the wireless keyboards but dh says this one is fine. Again, thank you all for your suggestions.

By Boxzgrl on Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 10:07 pm:

OMG Kristie, silly Alli!! Atleast you can see the letters now! (LOL)

By Bethk on Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 10:40 pm:

If the wipes are not working as good as you would like try taking the end of the wipe and dunk it in a little bit of baking soda and it should do much better. I'm a clean freak and I only clean with 4 items. Clorox, Baking Soda, Wipes, and Vinegar. They always seem to tackle any of my stains!

By Kittycat_26 on Monday, December 1, 2003 - 08:45 am:

non-aerosol hair spray.

By Ckm on Thursday, January 8, 2004 - 09:29 pm:

I know you guys had this problem a while ago, but I was just searching the internet today for help - my daughter wrote all over her white highchair with a Sharpie. I tried all the ideas I read and nothing worked. Then I tried straight Lestoil - and the marker just wiped off the chair. She had also gotten it on her sweater in the process and I put some on the spots on her sweater before I washed it and they came out too.

By Jennln on Thursday, January 8, 2004 - 10:04 pm:

I'd give the Mr. Clean Magic erasers a shot. My ds had drawn a keyboard and space to "enter a secret code" on his bedroom door in a sharpie marker and nothing took it off. The Mr. Clean eraser took it off with hardly any effort. It has also worked to remove pen marks and a toner "fingerprint" off my keyboard lol. (DH wasn't paying attention when he was replacing the printer cartridge :P )

By Insaneusmcwife on Thursday, January 8, 2004 - 11:49 pm:

I haven't heard of Lestoil, what is it? where can I get it? My mom said those magic erasers are great but I haven't tried one yet. I keep meaning to pick one up but I always forget. I have noticed that Kaboom works pretty well, although it does not get it all. There is still a faint trace of her artwork everywhere.

By Missy3 on Friday, January 9, 2004 - 12:00 am:

I just purchased an "OOPS!!" marker from my local ACE this weekend, just in case. It says it takes off perm. marker....

By Insaneusmcwife on Friday, January 9, 2004 - 12:21 am:

I will have to look into that one as well

By Tripletmomme on Friday, January 9, 2004 - 01:55 am:

Just wanted to add a little laugh about markers, just be thankful that it was your keyboard and not you. I had a touch of the flu and fell asleep one day last week,,to be woke up by a knock on the door, I jumped up and opened it to find the Schwans man, he kind of giggled and took my order. After he left I seen a black marker laying on the floor, as I went into the bathroom I glanced in the mirror,,,,,and OMG!! My face was covered in a very distintive triplet design! I couldnt believe it.....My husband got a huge laugh out of this, and Im waiting for the Schwans man to return to let him know, I knew what he was giggling about now.

By Marg on Friday, January 9, 2004 - 03:10 am:

Way too funny!

Tripletmomme, we had a similar situation but it was with just regular markers.

We went to eat at a restaurant about an hour away from our house. Oldest dd wanted to stay with her grandma, so we took middle dd (about 3 or 4 at the time). We have a minivan, so she was in her carseat, in the third row and it was dark. We thought she fell asleep on the way home but to our surprise when we got out she had marks all over her face from the markers.

We said "what happened?" She said "the markers attacked me!"

We laughed to hard! Instead of punishing her we took a picture of her to remind her what not to do!

By Ckm on Friday, January 9, 2004 - 11:31 am:

Lestoil is just a household cleaner for floors, etc. that is also good for grease, oil tar, ink stains. I'm sure you can get it at Wal-Mart kind of places or even the grocery store. It's kind of like Pine-sol only works wonders on everything I've ever used it on - especially laundry stains.