I’ve been told that you can remove biro/ballpoint pen ink stains by rubbing the area with milk, or even soaking the whole garment in milk. One of my staff tried it recently and she says it does in fact work.

So I’ll accept that.

How could this work? What is in the milk to loosen the ink? The protein? The fat? (maybe fat soluble ink?)

Anyone care to comment?

buffy said:

I’ve been told that you can remove biro/ballpoint pen ink stains by rubbing the area with milk, or even soaking the whole garment in milk. One of my staff tried it recently and she says it does in fact work.

So I’ll accept that.

How could this work? What is in the milk to loosen the ink? The protein? The fat? (maybe fat soluble ink?)

Anyone care to comment?

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/lastword/2007/10/milk-white.html

Hmm, consensus seems to be fat solubility.

buffy said:

Hmm, consensus seems to be fat solubility.

New Scientist selected two posts.. as being most factual..
“Pen inks are made with an organic solvent which evaporates upon writing. This means that the pigments in the ink are soluble in lipophilic materials – the fat in the milk falls into this category. Soaking the clothing in milk slowly returns the ink into solution, thereby removing it from the shirt.”
and

“It’s worthwhile to know that many pen inks are dissolved in ethanol, so adding that to a stained garment often has a similar effect to milk.”