How to Remove Silly Putty From Fabric

We’ve all seen the articles about WD-40 and alcohol…but I did an interesting test.  Actually I didn’t start the test…I just finished it.  The test was STARTED when one of my children decided to take Silly Putty to bed to “help me fall asleep.”  Hey, it’s not like I could say,”Dude, you should just try a rum and coke,” so, I sorta, distantly, understand.

So a FULL serving of Silly Putty ended up ground into a bed sheet, a pillow case and a pair of pajamas.  I fired up Google and found several articles mentioning WD-40 and rubbing alcohol.  One also mentioned freezing, but I was too impatient and felt the stuff was too far ground into the cloth.  So I tried 2 approaches:

WD-40 & Rubbing Alcohol:  This appeared to work.  The WD-40 loosened the putty after a few minutes, and I could use a spoon to scrape it off.  Then, I was able to use rubbing alcohol and cotton balls to dissolve the putty that was too engrained to be scraped.  After that, I washed the sheets and pillow case in a hot wash cycle with regular detergent and a scoop of Oxy Clean.  These were brand new bright orange sheets, and when they came out of the dryer there was no trace of the Silly Putty, no stains, and thankfully, the color fastness was still in tact.

Grandma’s Secret Spot Remover: For the pajamas, I wondered if there might be an easier way to get them clean, so I popped open the Grandma’s Secret Spot Remover and let fly (very liberal… I actually cut the tip of the bottle open to increase the throughput!).  I washed it once on hot with detergent and Oxy Clean  and there were still a couple remnants, so I reapplied, and repeated.  Perfect.

In the future (God forbid), if this happens again, I think I will just try the second method.  Don’t know if it will work for everyone, but thought I would share!