Shoes need regular care if you want to enjoy your footwear for a long time. Now the shoe cream is available in various designs: whether in tubes or jars and, of course, in many different colors. However, it should be applied with caution. It is not uncommon for some shoe polish to end up on clothing, floors or, in the worst case, carpets or upholstered furniture in the heat of the moment. The annoyance is then quite considerable, because dark shoe polish in particular not only leaves obvious stains – it is also very difficult to remove. With a few correct and simple tricks, however, you can make the annoying stains disappear in no time – if you know how!
How do I remove shoe polish from clothing and upholstery?
Shoe polish stains can be treated either with turpentine, methylated spirits or diluted ammonia solution for treatment. For colored fabric, use 1 part methylated spirits and 2 parts water; for white fabric, apply undiluted.
If the stain has got onto clothing or upholstered furniture, you should first carefully dab the stain with an absorbent cloth (kitchen paper is recommended here). Please do not scrub wildly with great zeal – that will only make the mishap worse. After dabbing, simply let the rest dry a little and later carefully scrape it off with your fingernail or a table knife. Again, proceed calmly and carefully here. Then carefully work on the area with a damp cloth until the stain is no longer visible.
Alternatively, instead of the damp cloth, you can of course also moisten a cloth with turpentine substitute and use it for the application. However, a small test should definitely be carried out on an inconspicuous area first. This test shows how the fabric reacts to the chemical.
After the procedure, of course, put the garment in the washing machine and wash as usual. Treat upholstered furniture with a freshening spray care.
How do I get stains out of the carpet again?
If the shoe polish has landed on the carpet, you should not panic, even if it is a light-colored floor covering. With calm and patience, you can even remove black shoe polish from carpeting extremely well. To do this, first let the shoe polish dry a little and then carefully scrape it off with a blunt object. A table knife or your fingernail is also useful here – sharp objects could damage the carpet and thus make the mishap worse. After scraping, treat the discoloration with a solution of warm water and methylated spirits. To do this, mix water with methylated spirits in a ratio of 2:1 and carefully dab the stain with a lint-free cloth.
Make sure that the cloth is well soaked with the solution so that the carpet can absorb the water-and-methylated-spirits mixture well. Now let this treatment soak into the carpet for about one to two hours so that the discoloration can loosen as much as possible. Afterwards, absorb the solution with a clean, dry cloth. If slight stain edges remain, they can be removed quite simply and easily with a commercially available Carpet cleaner removed.
How do I remove shoe polish stains that are already old?
If you did not notice the stain right away, the shoe polish simply dries – but that is not a big problem. If residue from the shoe polish has formed on clothing, the sofa or the carpet, it can be treated with simple household remedies such as petroleum jelly or glycerin. Simply let the stain soak with the products for one or two hours. Finally, rub the stain with lukewarm water or wash garments straight away.
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Image by Sabine, meinhaushalt.at
