While the word permanent may seem daunting, there are ways to remove permanent marker. Here is how to remove permanent marker from walls, carpet, clothing wood, and even dry erase boards.

If the kids get their hands on a permanent marker, thinking it’s a regular marker, then don’t despair. While you want permanent markers to stay put in some cases, in other situations, you want to erase the mistake.

How to remove permanent marker from walls requires things that you already have in your bathroom: hairspray and toothpaste. Use either on walls to remove the marker. Don’t scrub too hard – you don’t want to remove your wall paint!

How to remove permanent marker from carpet is something you probably have in your kitchen: white vinegar. Just put on the stain and dab with a paper towel or cloth.

How to remove permanent marker from wood floors or wood furniture is something you should have in your medicine cabinent: rubbing alcohol. Put a small amount on a cloth and gently apply using circular motions. Once removed, wipe down with water and then firmly dry. Once dry, apply furniture polish to give moisture back to the wood.

While most of us purposefully apply permanent marker to clothes to write our kids’ names on labels and such, sometimes you make a mistake or errantly get it on yourself while doing so. Grab hand sanitizer and dab on the stain with a cloth. Then wash your clothes.

Lastly, this is a common mistake, but an annoying one. You grab a marker thinking it is the marker for your dry erase board when it is actually a permanet marker. So if you don’t want ‘Pick up Tampons’ permanently on the dry erase board in your kitchen, then grab that dry erase marker. Go over the permanent marker with the dry erase marker and then remove. It pulls the permanent marker pigment with it.

Sadly, nothing is full proof, but hopefully these do the trick or at least make it less noticeable. As always, there is a risk that you might do more bad than good when trying to fix the problem, so know that going into it. In the end, you might need to rearrange furniture, paint a wall, get a new dry erase board or sweatshirt. But, hey, it’s worth a shot.

Good luck!