Keeping clothes tidy is the desire of everyone, but it is quite challenging when you have playful children running around all day. There is always a risk that your children may drop or leave some stains on your clothes. To cope with this issue, you should equip yourself with a wide range of knowledge about wiping out some common stains.

This stain is not that stubborn to remove if you know how to get highlighter out of clothes. However, you need to immediately take action before the ink becomes a permanent stain.
Table of Contents
Why Should We Remove The Highlighter Stain?

There are many sources of stains on clothes like colored-water, food marks, dirty particles, so on. Yet, the most terrible stain is absolutely the most evident one. And we are talking about the highlighter ink left on your clothes.
This daunting stain can be made accidentally when you are using a highlighter. On the other hand, sometimes your children use a highlighter to decorate your clothes with their art pieces.
Like all other stains, ones from highlighter irritates not only clothes owners but also others who look at the stains. More serious, the highlighter marks are always bright and colorful.
Consequently, they can gain a lot of unwanted attention from other people when you put on clothes with highlighter stains. Imagine how embarrassing it is when people notice you not because of your great outfit but an evident stain.
Furthermore, the impact of highlighter stain on clothes will depend on its density. If the highlighter stain is too dense, it is not only difficult to handle but also harmful to your skin. For this reason, you need to impose a cleaning solution as soon as you recognize a highlighter mark on your clothes.
How To Get Highlighter Out Of Clothes

In fact, there are many clothes cleaning chemicals, but we would like to provide you with the two most cost-effective and safe materials: rubbing alcohol and solvent.
These two cleaning solutions are always within our reach, and some stains don’t need to be cleaned by these methods. Hence, we would like to give you a straightforward and quick-response step to deal with small stains.
Quick-Response Method
Before carrying out any further method, you need to spot where the highlighter ink is. Don’t assume that the stain is bright and colorful, so you can notice it with ease.
This case is only right when the mark is dense. If the highlighter mark is weak, a few casual washing-ups can dim it. As a result, you will lose track of the irritating spot and confidently go out with the outfit having it on.
Once you notice that a highlighter ink is on your outfit, you should try a simple and urgent method to clean it away. Or else, the ink will spread and set a permanent spot on your clothes.
In this situation, paper towels will help you to slightly faint the stain. Remember not to dip the towels into the water, and the soaked paper towels will spread the highlighter ink instead of wiping it out.
Using Rubbing Alcohol

Rubbing alcohol is a strong chemical for cleaning clothes. Hence, before taking advantage of this method, many people are afraid of the problems caused by rubbing alcohol.
For instance, some users state that rubbing alcohol is so strong that it will faint the clothes’ original color. Even worse, this cleaning solution may spread the stain.
It will be an untruth if we deny all these rubbing alcohol’s potential problems. Yet, when you utilize this chemical carefully with the proper cleaning techniques, you don’t have to worry about any risk. Let’s remove the highlighter stain on your clothes with detailed steps.
We suggest that you apply rubbing alcohol in case you finish the urgent cleaning method above or the highlighter mark has been dried on your clothes. Before directly pouring the liquid onto your stained clothes, you need to check its effectiveness and adverse effects on the unnoticeable spots of the outfits. In some cases, the rubbing alcohol may fade your clothes’ color.
There are two common spots for you to test the rubbing alcohol: the inner part of the decorative patch on your clothes and the seam. By a proper test, you can make sure that rubbing alcohol is safe to use or not. If it doesn’t meet your expectations, then don’t hesitate to go for another solution. In the event the rubbing alcohol doesn’t come with any side-effect, follow these steps:
- Right underneath the stained spot, you need to place a rag or a piece of paper towel to absorb the ink extracted while you are carrying out the cleaning procedures. Don’t forget this step, or else the stain will penetrate into other parts of the clothes.
- Use a sponge or another rag to wipe out the stain. Firstly, you need to soak the sponge or the rag into rubbing alcohol. Next, instead of wiping the highlighter mark with force, you just need to dab the rag or sponge around the highlighter ink gently. This step will prevent the stain from spreading.
- When you finish dabbing around the stain, you need to wipe the stain directly. In this procedure, you should impose more force on wiping and add more rubbing alcohol to eliminate the stain.
- After the stain fades, you need to machine-wash your clothes in the warm-washing mode.
Using Solvent

Apart from rubbing alcohol, solvent is another accessible option for you to cope with the highlighter stain. There are two most common solvents that you can get from any convenience store: hand sanitizer and hairspray.
Utilizing these two solvents is not complicated, just almost the same as the procedures when applying rubbing alcohol. First of all, you also need to check whether the solvents will work well with your clothes’ materials. If not, you may ruin the cloth and spread the highlighter ink before you can get rid of it.
- When you finish the testing procedure, you need to utilize the solvent immediately. Before pouring the solvents into the highlighter ink, you need to place a piece of rag under the stained spot to contain the processed ink. Next, prepare a piece of clean cloth and dip it into the solvent.
- Dab around the stain, not directly to it. Wipe out the stain from the outer to the inside. Keep carrying out this procedure until you notice that the mark is fading out.
- Fill a container with cold and icy saltwater. Then, put the whole clothes, or just the stained part, into the container.
- Machine-wash the clothes in the warm-washing mode.
- You should dry the clothes with the machine as well. When hanging the clothes outside, the natural heat from the sun may result in some reaction with the chemicals in the solvent.
Bottom Lines
Highlighter stain on your clothes will gain a lot of attention from other people not because of your gorgeous outfit, but the highlighter’s colorfulness and brightness. Therefore, anyone wants to get rid of the highlighter ink.
How to get highlighter out of clothes? We have provided you with the two most effective and within-reach cleaning solutions for dealing with irritating stains. Just by following exactly the steps we provide you with, you can eliminate the highlighter marks and retain the perfect condition of your clothes.