Homeowner Forum / Cleaning / July 2006

   I seem to recall they make a product just for removing the color and it
is available in the same areas as they sell the dye.

I have had luck on a cuple of occasions with DENTURE CLEANER yes
denture cleaner. If possiable try to place the tablet directly over the
stain (braking it up if necessary) and just add a little......bit of
water with a eye dropper or something simmilar. There are also availabe
at I believe LOWES or it may be HOME DEPOT these bleach tablets 1
tablet dissolved in 1gal of water is = to a gallon bleach you could
also try this..try the denture thing first though  Good luck

Try a solvent.

denatured acholl
laquer thinner
etc...

j

Thanks everyone for these great tips.  I'll try them (not all at once of
course) and report back.

To answer norminn's questions, which are not at all dumb:
    - yes, it's an old tub, so probably the glaze is worn, certainly
there are scratches on it
    - i don't know what kind of dye.  the jeans that ran were made by
lee, and perhaps a call to them will be instructive
    - i don't think there's soap scum or mineral deposits on the tub as
i've washed and rinsed it too much to leave any soap scum and the water
in my area (nyc) is pretty soft.

Kelly

Thank you for your excellent suggestions.  The first thing I tried was
filling up my bathtub till there was about 2-3 inches of water over the
stain and adding about 1/3 of a bottle of OxiClean Laundry detergent.
In about an hour the stain began to fade.  I let it soak until the stain
stopped getting lighter, about 18 hours.  Then I added some borax (found
out about that on a web site) and it seemed to get lighter still.

I emptied the tub and thought I'd try Clorex's version of OxiClean's
paste (OxiMagic) as it was cheaper and sold in a smaller container.  I
left the paste on the stain for about 45 minutes and more came off, both
by contact and scrubbing.

Then I thought I'd see how Zud would handle what was left.  This was the
most amazing to me.  Directions said leave on a paste for a mintue or
two, then rinse and scrub if necesary.  Quite a bit of the stain was
gone with gentle rinsing.  When I applied more pressure it all came off,
even the areas where the dye had colored fairly deep scratches.  Not
only that, but unlike the Oxi products, the Zud made my tub shine.

The Zud also picked up the soap scum that the other products missed.

Thanks again for all your help.

Kelly