Get Chewing Gum off Clothes

We've all been there--you were sprinting to catch the train home, made it (yay!) and sat down in the first seat you saw (without looking to see what might already be occupying that seat). When you got home you realized with horror that your entire rear of your favorite pants was covered in gum. Before you panic, take a breath--wikiHow is here to help! Here are some quick fixes that will take roughly five minutes and leave you happily gum-free.

Steps

Freezing the Gum

  1. Remove the article of clothing and fold it. You will want to fold it so that the contaminated part is facing out, not touching any other part of the fabric. Try to peel off as much of the gum as you can with your fingers. You want to be careful not to smear the gum further into the fabric, and also careful that you do not accidentally stick it to other parts of the fabric.[1]
    • You could consider wearing rubber gloves during this process so that you do not have to deal with the stickiness of the gum. However, do not delay putting the garment in the freezer simply because you are looking for rubber gloves.
  2. Put your garment into a plastic bag. It should be a bag that you can seal. When you put your article of clothing into the bag, make sure that the gum does not touch the bag and then smear (thus contaminating the rest of the garment).
    • The plastic bag can be any size that you want--it doesn’t have to fit into a particular bag, it just has to be one that can fit into your freezer.
  3. Seal the bag. Once the bag is sealed, but it in the freezer. While this may seem like an odd thing to do, freezing the gum will actually make it hard and it in turn will lose some of its stickiness. Freezing the gum will make it easier to get off.[1]
    • If you do not have access to a freezer, but happen to have some ice cubes on hand, you can rub an ice cube on the gum until it hardens from the cold. After it hardens, follow the next steps.
  4. Keep the bag and clothing in the freezer for several hours. The harder the gum gets, the easier it will be to remove it from your clothes. Take the bag out of the freezer once the gum is hard.
  5. Scrape the gum off of the clothes. You should do this as soon as you take the garment out of the freezer. Remove the garment out of the plastic bag and put it down onto a hard surface. Use a blunt but pointed object to peel or scrape the gum off of your clothes. You could use a paint remover, simple butter knife, or even your fingernails if yours are long and sharp enough.
    • It is important to remove the gum immediately after you take the clothing out of the freezer because if it is allowed to warm up, it could get sticky again which would make it a lot harder to remove.
  6. Wash your clothes. If there is any gum residue left on your garment, and to make sure that the gum has not stained the fabric, you should put your article of clothing in the washer machine.

Ironing the Gum

  1. Place a piece of cardboard on your ironing board. The cardboard will ensure that the gum stuck to your garment will not melt off and then get stuck on your ironing board. Place the piece of clothing down on the cardboard so that the spot with the gum stuck to it is in the middle of the piece of cardboard.
    • You can also use a piece of brown paper.
  2. Heat the iron to a medium heat without steam. Turn the dial on your iron so that it is at a medium heat. Medium heat is best because anything hotter would melt the gum. Instead, what you are going to do is try to heat the gum up so that it loosens from the fabric, rather than melting everywhere and making a mess.
  3. Run the iron over the part of the fabric with the gum on it. The fabric with the gum should be face-down on the cardboard so that you are ironing the backside of the garment and the fabric is making a barrier between the gum and the iron.[2]
  4. Continue to iron the garment until the gum loosens. Eventually, the gum should melt enough that it sticks to the cardboard rather than to the fabric. Pull the garment away from the cardboard. If the gum hasn’t stuck completely to the cardboard, continue to iron the spot until it does.

Using Different Hot Liquids

  1. Use a hot liquid to remove the gum. There are three different ways that you can do this, though all three method seem to have the same results. You can either use hot water, hot steam, or hot white vinegar.
    • Hot water: Boil water in a large pot. If your affected garment is a pair of pants or another large article of clothing, you may want to use a bathtub rather than a pot.
    • Hot steam: Put a tea kettle on high heat so that it gets very hot. The tea kettle will produce steam that is perfect for steam blasting your garment.
    • Hot vinegar: Heat some white vinegar. Dip a washcloth (or some other absorbent cloth) into the vinegar so that the cloth has absorbed quite a bit of the vinegar.
  2. Let the heated liquid work its magic. Regardless of the method you chose to use, you will need to let the hot liquid do its thing. Keep in mind that you may need to do this whole process several times.
    • Hot water: Submerge the piece of clothing so that it is fully covered by the water. Keep the garment submerged for several minutes. During this time, the gum will be getting loosened by the heat of the water.
    • Hot steam: Hold the fabric with the gum on it directly in front of the mouth of the kettle (or where the most steam is being released from the kettle). The gum should absorb the steam, thus softening.
    • Hot vinegar: Apply the vinegar-soaked cloth directly to the area of the fabric with the gum on it. The vinegar should loosen the bond between the fibers of the clothing and the gum. The gum will become soft and pliable.[2]
  3. Scrub the gum off with a toothbrush or knife. Once the gum has heated up, you will need to scrape it off. Regardless of the method you used, once the gum is thoroughly soaked and heated up, take a toothbrush (that you don’t care about) or a blunt knife and gently scrape the gum off of the clothing. If the gum doesn’t come off despite your best efforts, soak it again using your method of choice.
  4. Wash the clothes in a regular washing machine. Once you have removed most, if not all, of the gum, place the garment in the washing machine and run it on a regular cycle to get any gum residue off of your clothing.

Using Peanut Butter

  1. Place a gob of peanut butter on the gum. You will want to make sure that the gum is entirely coated on all visible sides. Add a bit of extra peanut butter so that it forms a thick coating around the gum. Peanut butter is a good product to use because the natural oil in the peanut butter works well to loosen the gum up.[3]
  2. Leave the peanut butter on the gum and fabric for roughly 60 seconds. You want to only leave it on for a very short period of time or else the peanut butter may stain your clothing. Leave it on for 60 seconds.
  3. Use a butter knife to scrape the gum off of the fabric. If you don’t have a butter knife on hand, you can use any object that has a thin, sharp edge (a paint scraper, fingernail, or metal nail file should do the trick). Scrape until all of the gum and peanut butter are removed, but be careful not to scrape so hard that you damage the fabric.
  4. Put a stain remover on the affected area of fabric. Do this as soon as you have scraped away the rest of the peanut butter and gum. Though the oils in peanut butter are what make it great for removing gum, those same oils can also stain your clothes. Luckily a stain treatment will solve that problem. Add some to the spot and then put it in the washing machine on the cycle you would normally wash it on.[3]

Using Coconut Oil

This is great for removing chewing gum off synthetic sports clothing.

  1. Pour 1 tablespoon of coconut oil into small saucer.
  2. Heat the coconut oil in the microwave for 5 to10 seconds. Heat only enough so that it is warm, not boiling hot.
  3. Treat the gum stain. Dip the stained spot in the warm oil.
  4. Rub the material together so that the gum slowly dissolves.
  5. Air dry the fabric.
  6. If there are no traces of gum, throw the dry clothes into a warm wash.
  7. If the material is still hard or sticky, repeat the oiling process.

Tips

  • You can also try using some household supplies, but these are much more likely to damage your clothes while removing the gum. These supplies include Goo Be Gone, adhesive removal spray, rubbing alcohol, WD40, and hairspray.



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Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.howtocleanstuff.net/how-to-remove-gum/
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.wisegeek.org/how-can-i-remove-chewing-gum-from-clothing.htm
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://doitandhow.com/2011/04/26/use-peanut-butter-to-remove-bubble-gum/

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