
A ballpoint pen ink mark can ruin the appearance of an entire piece of clothing. Whether a pen exploded in your pocket, or you have just one mark on your shirt, you don't have to throw out an otherwise good piece of clothing because of the stain. Take care when removing ink stains from clothing so the ink does not spread.
New Ink Stains
Lay the ink-stained portion of the clothing on top of a rag. This will catch the ink as it is being removed from the fabric.
Saturate the ink spot with alcohol-based hairspray. Blot the ink stain with a clean rag.
Continue blotting, switching to clean portions of the rag frequently, until no more ink transfers from the clothing to the rag. Apply more hairspray as needed.
Wash the clothing as usual. Let the clothing air dry after washing and inspect for any traces of the ink.
Repeat this process if the ink stain remains. If the hairspray doesn't remove the ink, move on to the steps for treating persistent ink stains.
Persistent Ink Stains
Apply dry-cleaning solvent to a clean rag and blot it onto the stain. Continue blotting, switching to clean portions of the rag frequently, until the ink is no longer transferring onto the rag. Apply more dry-cleaning solvent as needed.
Rinse the stained area of the clothing with cool water to remove the dry-cleaning solvent. Blot the spot with a rag moistened with rubbing alcohol. Let the rubbing alcohol sit on the clothing until it has dried.
Drizzle liquid laundry detergent on top of the rubbing alcohol. Work the detergent into the stain with your fingers. Let it sit on the clothing overnight.
Rinse the clothing under cool water the next day. Apply a laundry pretreatment spray and launder the clothing as usual. Do not place the clothing in the dryer until you are sure that all of the ink is gone.
Related Articles

How to Remove Sharpie Ink From Clothing
How to Get Grease Stains Out of ...
How to Remove Crayola Paint From ...

Removing White Fuzzy Mold From Dark ...
How to Remove Color From White Clothes ...

How to Get Ink Off Fingers

How to Remove Sweat & Deodorant Stains ...

How to Get Wrinkles Out of Nylon ...

Tricks to Get Pen Stains Out of Light ...

How to Get Lighter Fluid Out of Clothing

How to Get Liquid Eyeliner off Clothes

How to Wash Clothes Affected by Smoke

How to Take Out Wrinkles From a Merino ...

How to Remove Screen Printing From ...

How to Get Pen Ink Off of Hands

How to Remove Petroleum Jelly Stains ...
How to Use Coca Cola As Grease Stain ...

How to Make Tank Tops Out of T-Shirts

How to Remove Silk Screening From ...

How to Remove Roller Ball Ink From ...
References
Writer Bio
Kimbry Parker has been writing since 1998 and has published content on various websites. Parker has experience writing on a variety of topics such as health, parenting, home improvement and decorating. She is a graduate of Purdue University with a Bachelor of Arts in organizational communication.
Photo Credits
pen image by Zbigniew Nowak from Fotolia.com