Using Rubbing Alcohol to Remove Marker

I’ve never hidden the fact that I like to find a good thrift store bargain. To me it’s a treasure hunt. Sure, I’ll have to look at lots of other junk in the process, but hey – that don’t bother me none. You just never know what fun little goodies you might come across and at good prices too! A good example is this cute little pair of summer shoes I found for a couple bucks on a recent end-of-the-season special.

Everything was happy and good but when I paid, I noticed the cashier flipped the shoes over and they had written on the bottom of the shoe with a black marker so they knew what price to charge. Yeah, Yeah, it was on the bottom of the shoe, it wasn’t really noticeable, and I bought the shoes anyway and headed home , but still . . . .

It was bugging me. {{ I get like that sometimes }}

So I started to think about what I could do to get rid of the marker writing on my bargain shoes and remembered that I had read that rubbing alcohol can be used as a homemade solution for removing marker. This seemed like a good opportunity to test it out. If it worked, then great! If it didn’t work, well it was just a pair of bargain sandals so no big deal.

I moistened a piece of paper toweling with my rubbing alcohol and got to work. After only a little bit of scrubbing, the marker did indeed start coming off. I kept at it and sure enough, I was able to get rid of all the marker.

But then – uh oh – it removed a little bit of the color too. I guess if something is strong enough to remove marker, it’s strong enough to remove the other colorings too.

So now that my little experiment is over, it looks like rubbing alcohol can in fact, be a homemade remedy for removing marker, but be warned that it might just remove more than you bargained for. If possible, I would suggest putting some rubbing alcohol on a paper towel and rubbing it on a hidden area of the surface first to avoid any unwanted surprises.