Right by the door to my living room,  I have a little plastic cup full of pens and pencils. Why? To remind everyone  coming into my home to remove their pens and pencils from their pockets before sitting on my couch! I don’t care how much an editor spills red ink all over my copy, but for God’s sake, there’s nothing worse than discovering someone has inadvertently scribbled all over your sofa. The other week, I had that exact thing happen to my upholstered armchair. Naturally, I freaked. But luckily, I got it all cleaned up and squared away and my furniture looks like new (well, maybe not new, but at least there’s no ink on it!).

When I first found the red pen ink on my upholstery, my friend was with me and she suggested to dab a cotton ball in some dry cleaning fluid and wipe it up. But, believe it or not, I’m not the kind of person to just keep dry cleaning fluid on hand at all times. I called my mom and she had another novel idea that actually worked: hairspray.

I just shot a little bit of shaping airspray on the ink, wiped with a cloth and it was gone! Amazing. I’ve heard some stories that this works on a leather too, but that it can possibly remove the finish. That’s why it’s important to wipe it up completely. I was also lucky to catch it early – the longer the pen marks sit, the harder it will be to come up. Also, remember to always use a white cloth. If you use a dyed cloth, the cleaning solution will just cause the color from the cloth to bleed onto your furniture. Oops.

I did some additional poking around on the Internet and found some more solutions for cleaning up pen ink from upholstery and other fabrics. If the hairspray trick doesn’t work for you, try some of these methods:

• Mix a bit of clear, bleach free detergent with some water in a spray bottle. Spray the stain and blot carefully. Rinse with a wet cloth and then pat dry. Next, pat with a mixture of water and white vinegar (did you think I’d get through a post without mentioning vinegar?).
• Wet a white cloth with isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol and blot the stain. Wipe with a clean, dry towel.
• Wet a white cloth with a little bit of nail polish remover or acetone. Blot at the stain from the outside towards the center. Careful with this one – spot check first and do not over apply. Nail polish remover is strong stuff (but I dont’ have to tell you that).
• Try the above methods but with turpentine – but again, be extra careful. Also, you may want to hold off on mixing and matching all these chemicals – your couch is likely to be worse off if you keep swallowing the spider to catch the fly.

Of course, you can always turn to store bought products. If you are really, really serious you can pick up the Carbona Power Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner which is a foaming upholstery cleaning solution with a powered brush attached (no joke). I have one handy and I use it occasionally to freshen up furniture. My mother keeps a can of American Home K2R Spot Remover on hand and she claims it worked even on a red pen ink stain that had been sitting for awhile.

The best solution: keep those pen toting jerks away from your furniture. Seriously!