How to Clean Printer Ink And Toner Off of Your Hands and Fabrics

Getting the stain is easy — to clean printer ink and toner off of your hands and clothes isn’t.
You’d hardly escape getting stained when changing your toner cartridge or printer ink; stains may also follow a paper jam.

Don’t let the mess weigh you down. Use the guide here.

First, take precaution.

Test a small (preferably invisible) part of your clothing to figure out if the chemical you plan to use would solve your problem or worsen it.

Check your clothing tag for any care guides before attempting to remove ink or toner stains.

If your clothing tag forbids you using bleach — for set-in stains only — use a pretreatment solution consisting of two tablespoons of liquid detergent, three tablespoons of white vinegar, and one quart (i.e., one liter) of warm water.

Let’s explore step by step how to clean printer ink off of your hands and fabrics — starting with your fabrics. Read on.

Clean Fresh Ink Stains Off of Clothes and Fabrics

Use a damp towel or sponge: Using a clean, damp towel, dab the stained part of the garment until you completely lift the ink off of the area. You may use a sponge in place of a towel.

Air dry: Allow the stain to air dry.

Hairspray or alcohol: Dab the stain with alcohol or spray it with hairspray.

Paper towels: Insert your stained garment between two paper towels.

Blot the stain out: Force the stain out into one of the paper towel by blotting the back side of the fabric.

Repeatedly blot the stains out: Lift off the stain by repeatedly pressing the affected area of the garment into the clean segments of the paper towel. Make sure you are pressing and moving the paper towel to ensure the stains do not retransfer into the cloth. Use new paper towels if you see a need for them. Continue this process until you completely remove the stains.

Clean OldInk Stains Off of Clothes and Fabrics

Cleaning off printer ink stains that have settled into your garment requires a bit more rigor. Here’s the process:

Apply detergent: Use a small amount of liquid laundry detergent on the affected area.

Scrub: Scrub the stained spot with a toothbrush; this should start lifting the stain.

Use bleach (if appropriate for your garment): If the scrubbing didn’t remove the stain, mix one part water with one part bleach, dip the toothbrush in the solution and softly brush the stain off.

Wash the cloth: Wash the cloth immediately. Your garment must NOT dry between scrubbing and washing it — the loosened ink stain would set back into your fabric if dried.

Dry the garment: Dry the garment flat or hanged. DON’T use a dryer. Using a dryer would set-in any remaining ink residues into the fabric. Repeat this process (1 to 5) if you find any ink residues after your garment dries.

Clean Toner Stains Off of Clothes and Fabrics

Hand vacuum: First off, vacuum the area affected by the toner stain, and then take off your clothing.

Shake: Once taken off, shake the garment vigorously to remove the remaining toner stain.

Brush: Use a soft bristled brush to clean off the stains gently. DON’T rub the stain as doing so forces the toner powder deeper into the fabric.

Brush alternative: You may use a dry piece of cloth, like a towel, instead of a bristled brush. Use the dry cloth in a brushing motion — make sure it’s a piece of cloth that you don’t mind soiling.

Using rubbing alcohol: Blot the toner stain with an absorbent cloth you’ve dampened with rubbing alcohol.

Use hairspray: Spray the affected area with hairspray and blot BOTH sides of the fabric with the towel, then wash the garment in a washing machine using COLD water. Stains could become permanent if heat fuses the toner dust, so make sure you’ve completely removed the stain before exposing your cloth to a dryer.

Clean Printer Ink Off of Your Hands

About all printer ink or toner stain removers have their downsides — especially if the stain is on your skin.

I have provided a list of eight ways to clean ink or toner stains from your hands, and possible health hazards that follow each of these options.

Bleach: Mix 1 part of bleach with ten parts of water. Rub the affected areas with the solution until the stain is wiped off. Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly using soap and water after removing the stains. Neutralize the smell of the bleach by squeezing orange or lemon. Bleach is caustic. Chlorine is an ingredient in bleach; it can cause burn and irritations of the eye, nose, and throat; it can also cause pigment loss. Bleach can also cause vomiting and nausea.

Nail polish remover: This can remove printer ink or toner stains from your hands. However, you want to be careful with using a nail polish remover on anything apart from your skin as it’s capable of removing your furniture’s finish. Acetone, better known by the name ‘nail polish remover,’ can cause dizziness, irritation of the eyes, skin, and throat, and headaches if exposed to it too often for too long.

Rubbing alcohol: After using rubbing alcohol to get the toner or in off of your hands, apply some lotion to avoid drying out your skin. Make sure you keep the liquid away from your nose and do not ingest it.Isopropyl alcohol — the scientific name of rubbing alcohol — when ingested or inhaled causes side effects like dizziness, headaches, nausea, flushing, vomiting, and in some extreme cases may cause coma.

Hairspray: Apply hairspray on the stained area, leave for some time to dissolve the ink or toner. And then Wash it off. Swallowing a small amount of hairspray, unintentionally, isn’t dangerous — but deliberate swallowing of the substance can cause harm. The alcohol content of hairspray, according to Poison.org, is the only dangerous ingredient it has.

Glass Cleaner: Most homes and offices have some glass cleaner lying somewhere. Use this option to remove fresh stains. Spray the glass cleaner on the affected parts of your hands and wipe them with a paper towel BEFORE the ink dries out. Make sure that you do not breathe in or swallow the glass cleaner. This liquid, which contains ammonia (and other potentially toxic substances like ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, and methanol), can irritate the eye, lungs, and throat, and can damage the airways and mucous membrane.

Baby Oil: Baby oil coagulates the ink or toner stains quickly, especially when it’s still fresh. Overall, this is the safest option on this list.

Tea Tree Oil: Apply a few drops on a piece of clean dry cloth, and then scrub off the stain. To clean your skin thoroughly, repeat the process while using a fingernail brush to reach the crevices of your skin. Repeat until you’ve completely cleaned off the all the ink. Although Tea Tree Oil won’t harm you, it has a strong odor you might not like, so use it in a well-ventilated place. Don’t ingest tea tree oil as it might have serious side effects like unsteadiness, rash, and in extreme cases coma. Use other solutions on this list if you have acne, as tea tree oil may cause skin dryness, burning, stinging, and redness. Amazon and other retail outlets sell the product.

Hand Cleaner Solutions: Solutions like Goop and Gojo. These cleaners are for removing grease but can be used to remove ink and toner stains as well.

Conclusion

When dealing with ink or toner stains on your fabrics make sure to check clothing tags for care instructions — using bleach or rubbing alcohol may be inappropriate for some garments. Remember to test a small, invisible area of your cloth to determine if using a particular chemical would be appropriate or not.

Whether your fabric allows bleach or not, this article covers your need. Where using bleach is inappropriate, use the pretreatment solution described in the first few paragraphs of this article.

Applying chemicals to your skin should be done with utmost care. If you’d experience irritations with certain chemicals, try out other options on the list when removing stains from your hand.

It’s usually best to clean off ink or toner stains from your skin as quickly as possible; for example, using baby oil is deemed completely harmless. You have eight options from the list above, choose a handy option if you ever need to clean an ink or toner stain off of your skin.

We offer the best market rate. If you have new toner to sell, we can give you a quote in an hour; we’ll pay you here — online — and even cover shipping. Let’s talk.

Help Me! My Toner Cartridge Is Leaking

Things go wrong every once a while — I haven’t met anyone who can control all the events in his life. Resilience, it seems, is all that matters in the end. This philosophy applies to leaking toner cartridges as well.

If you use refilled toner, then your chances of experiencing a toner leak are significantly higher than if you use OEMs or compatible toners. Of course, OEM and compatible toners are not immune to leaks; refilled toners just have a higher probability of leaking.

This guide provides you with step-by-step processes for cleaning up toner leaks. If you do not have basic printer maintenance skills or if opening up your printer would void your warranty, then you should contact the manufacturer or hire a professional to help. Now, let’s dive in.

How to Clean Up a Toner Cartridge Leak

Image Credit: HP

If your toner cartridge is leaking, then you should take the steps outlined below to cleaning up the plastic-dust without causing further damage to your cartridge, health, or furniture. Read on.

What NOT to do: Don’t use the regular vacuum cleaner! The toner is plastic dust, and you shouldn’t inhale it. Using a vacuum cleaning blows toner particles into the air, causing issues beyond the toner dust itself.

Well, you may ignore that warning if your printer has a specially designed vacuum for cleaning toner particles, called ESD (Electrostatic Discharge-safe) toner vacuum. The EDS vacuum has HEPA (i.e., High-Efficiency Particulate Air) filter that effectively cleans up toner spills. However, you don’t need any special vacuum cleaners if you don’t have one.

Toner Vacuum. Image Credit: Ebay

To clean up the toner leak, get these materials ready:

Latex gloves,
Paper towel,
Non-surgical face mask,
Trash bag,
Clear plastic, and
Compressed air sprayer

I’ve divided this cleaning process into two sections. First, clean the machine and then the spill site.

How to clean your machine:

1. Protect Yourself: Inhaling toner dust or having it on your skin isn’t healthy. Toner particles are extremely fine plastic powder and breathing them in can cause you serious health issues.

If you already had contact with the toner dust, clean it off your skin first. Take care of your skin first before cleaning other surfaces. You may use cold water to remove toner from your skin or hasten the removal process by using an abrasive cleaner.

Make sure that you have your face mask and latex gloves on before tacking the cleaning task. Inhaling toner dust can cause nausea, dizziness, headaches, irritations in your throat, and even lung problems (just as if you’re a cigarette smoker).

2. Allow Machine to Cool and Unplug from Electrical Contacts: If you’d turned the machine on before noticing the leak, turn it off and leave it to cool for, at least, one hour. Letting your printer cool off is essential because heated components of the copier can cause burns if you don’t allow to cool before attempting to clean it.

Make sure that you unplug your devices from electricity before you start your cleaning work. Ensure you’ve turned off the machine, unplugged power cords from AC power sockets, disconnected all cables, and stayed away from any nearby electrical contacts.

3. Bring Out Your Toner Cartridge: Open your copier’s front cover panel, using a paper towel underneath, pull your toner cartridge out. If your printer’s toner cartridge is assembled inside of a drum unit, pull out the drum unit from your printer. Make sure you don’t tilt the cartridge unduly not to worsen the toner spill.

Image Credit: Ink Technologies (YouTube)

Now, put aside the drum unit you pulled out. Avoid interfering with that drum unit.

4. Don’t Scatter Toner Further: To stop toner dust from scattering all over the place, put some clear plastic down to use as a base for your machine. Remove spilled toner powder form the copier, using a paper towel, and put them into a trash bag.

During this cleaning session, do not use water or any liquid solutions to prevent any likely damages they may cause to printer components. Liquids may also cause your toner powder to stick.

5. Finish Up Your Cleaning:

Now, if you have an EDS vacuum, it’ll find use at this stage. You can use compressed air to remove whatever toner dust remains on the copier. Make sure to give four inches of space between your vacuum cleaner and machine. Vacuum your cartridges as well.

6. Reinstall Your Copier: Now, go ahead and reinstall your machine, connect your printer cables, plug it to power, and power it on.

If your toner cartridge leak is excessive and you suspect that it may have already affected other parts of your printer, that would be a lot more work than you can handle. You may endanger your health if you take on the task of cleaning your machine by yourself. It’s best that you call a qualified copier servicing professional.

How to clean a toner spill site:

Toner spill site. Image credit: Flickr

After cleaning your printer, you may want to clean up the spill site. Use these tips:

– Scoop up toner deposits if they are large, and put it in a trash bag and seal it. Make sure to check what your local regulations allow, if you may dispose of the toner powder in your public waste disposal system.

– Wet a paper towel with lukewarm water and wipe down the spill site’s surface.

– Wipe down toner from your carpet by dabbing it with a dampened clean towel and dry cleaning fluid. Do not use water. Using water would likely stain the carpet permanently. If you can’t use dry cleaning fluid, use a toner vacuum.

– In case you find any remaining toner on the floor or other surfaces, you can use a toner vacuum to vacuum them all up. It’s imperative that you use ONLY toner vacuum and not a different type of vacuum cleaner. The filters of toner vacuum cleaners can pick up toner dust without dispersing them through the air.

Reduce the Leak and Salvage the Cartridge

It’s best to call your manufacturer or a trained technician to help you determine if your toner leak can be reduced or fixed. If the leak is from a toner cartridge that’s still full, then you may be reluctant to change or buy a replacement so soon.

Checking with your manufacturer or maintenance professional could help you determine if buying a new cartridge is the smart option. However, more often than not, you’d have to replace a leaking toner cartridge with a new one.