As a matter of fact, printer ink is supposed to be inside the printer. However, this tricky sneaky liquid sometimes happens to appear in most unexpected places. For example, on your lovely fluffy soft carpet.
How to get ink out of carpet? It is not so scary and hard to do! Use our easy tips and your carpet will resurrect.
First-Aid Actions to Save Your Carpet
A reason why you ended up with an ink spill can be different.
You could drop the cartridge by accident or some ink splashed out when you were installing it to the printer, or maybe, there was a crack on the cartridge and some of the ink got on the floor. In doesn’t matter in fact! The result is that there is a blot of fresh ink on the carpet because of the ink spillage now and it’s up to you to remove it immediately until it is not too late.
Your actions will depend on what kind of ink we are talking about.
- If your ink was powdered, vacuum the area without touching the powder with the tube or brush of the vacuum cleaner, otherwise, you will rub the powder even deeper into the cover.
Pour some carpet cleaning liquid or any strong stain remover, only make sure they have a foaming action! It will bring the particles of ink up.
Blot everything and repeat the procedure again. Do it until the ink mark is gone.
In the end, rinse and blot out with a dry cloth.
- If it so happened that you have to struggle with liquid ink, try to remove printer ink from carpet. Delete as much of the ink from the carpet as possible using a dry cloth or towel. Make center-oriented moves to prevent it from spreading even wider.
Apply some isopropyl alcohol to a clean cotton cloth and blot the mark.
Redo the procedure until there is no ink on the carpet and on the cloth anymore.
Rinse and let it air-dry.
A Detailed Strategy On How to Remove Ink from Carpet
Sometimes it happens that you can’t delete the inky blot from the carpet at once and there is still a visible mark there. In this case, getting ink out of the carpet will require more effort from you. For this purpose, you may use several different methods. If one doesn’t help, try another one till you find the method that works best of all.
Rubbing Alcohol to Get Ink Out of Carpet
It must be applied immediately while the blot is fresh.
Put some alcohol on the corner of a dry cloth and blot out the inky mark.
Tap slightly the mark but never rub – it will make everything only worse.
Repeat the procedure several times to remove ink from carpet and leave the blotted mark alone for half an hour.
To assure your carpet remains in good condition, take care of it using a solution of warm water and vinegar. Rubbing alcohol can dry out the fiber and we don’t want to ruin your carpet more, right? To prepare the mixture, take a quarter cup of vinegar, mix it up with a quart of water.
Right after the inky mark is deleted, wash away the traces of the agent with water and let it dry.
Lubricant for Removing Printer Ink from Carpet
As an option, try out any lubricant, for example, WD-40 is perfectly ok. Just let it there for a few minutes. Note: However, it is strongly recommended to check how this product will work before you use it because sometimes it can leave permanent marks on the carpet.
The next stage of removing ink from carpets is to delete the mark with soapy warm water or a special carpet-cleaning liquid.
Rinse with warm water and let it dry.
Home-Made Cleaning Method to Remove Ink from Carpets
How to get ink out of carpet if no special means for that can be found at home? Simply prepare a home-made “medicine”.
- Take detergent, ammonia, and vinegar. Mix a teaspoon of detergent in one cup of water and spray it all over the blot.
Clean the blot with a cloth avoiding to rub it.
Mix one tablespoon of ammonia and half cup of water, spray it over the mark. Blot out with another dry cloth.
Finally, make a blend of water and vinegar (use 50/50 proportion) and apply it to the blot, too. Then blot out with a clean dry cloth.
Rinse and let it dry.
How to Remove Ink Stains from Carpets With a Shaving Cream
If you don’t even have ammonia or detergent, use simple shaving cream!
Spray it over the blot, rinse with water to make foam, pour more water and hoover it away with a shop hoover.
What Gets Ink Out of Carpet. The Best Products to Use
You already noticed that there are plenty of different means that can revive your carpet after the ink attack. However, among them, there are several most effective ones that are not expensive and give really good results.
To remove ink stains from carpet for sure, use such products as WD-40, DAWN or Joy that work well. As an alternative variant, try some dry-cleaning agent from the grocery or hardware store. If you want to know the names, well, check these out when you go shopping next time:
- Bissel
- Clorox
- Resolve
- Woolite
- Hoover Professional Strength Removal
- Carbona Oxy-Power
There also exist some unusual and even exotic home-made and DIY carpet cleaners that you can try. For example, they say that beer deals perfectly with easy stains from tea or coffee, whilst a paste made of milk and cornstarch can handle even the inkblot! Borax also works well for deleting mysterious marks from the carpets.
Nevertheless, it would be wise to go to the nearest store and buy special carpet-cleaning liquid that will work on your particular carpet as it also depends on its material and kind of fiber (for that, ask a seller to consult you).