Cleaning White Walls: How to Remove the Most Stubborn Stains
Because white walls always end up getting stained one day or another, it’s best to plan ahead and provide the equipment you need to clean your white wall when it gets stained by coffee, pencil marks from your children, or greasy food splotches. As with laundry, there’s a solution suited to each type of stain, as well as to each type of wall paint.
Cleaning white walls based on the type of stain
- Beverages such as coffee, tea, or hot chocolate
To remove the marks of a hot beverage that has fallen and splashed all over your white wall, it’s best to act directly by wiping up the liquid with some paper towel. Then, try to eliminate the remaining stains with a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol.
- Pen or marker ink
Often, when you have children, there comes a time when they want to express themselves on the walls of the house. To remove scribbles or drawings in pen or marker on a white wall, one solution involves spraying some hairspray on the stain, then absorbing it as soon as the ink starts to flow.
- Grease and food splotches
To clean grease stains or splotches encrusted on a white wall, you can make a mixture of baking soda and water, form a little paste, then apply it to the wall and let the mixture act for a few hours. After that, rinse the mixture on your wall with a damp sponge, then dry the wall with a clean towel.
Cleaning white walls based on the type of paint
To clean a wall without damaging the paint, first of all, you should always consider choosing a product and cleaning equipment suited to the paint.
- Water-based paint
On a white wall painted with water-based paint, the most stubborn stains should be removed with an eraser or magic eraser sponge, which just needs to be moistened to scrub and remove the stains.
- Acrylic paint
To clean a white wall painted with acrylic paint, it’s best to use soapy water without really immersing the wall in water to avoid damaging the paint. For example, you can make a mixture of water and black soap and move a sponge directly over the stain, making movements from bottom to top.
Tip: On a non-washable white wall, a very effective tip for getting rid of a stubborn stain involves cutting a potato in two and making circular movements over the stain before rinsing with water. The power of the starch in the potato works wonders for making many types of stains disappear.
- Glycerin paint
On a wall with glycerin paint, scrub the most stubborn stains with an only moistened sponge and possibly some well-diluted baking soda, and don’t scrub too hard to avoid chipping the paint.
- Milk paint
Waterproof and eco-friendly, milk paint on a wall lets you easily clean stubborn stains with soap and water, as well as with many other products.
To clean a white wall and remove the most stubborn stains, consider checking the type of paint, but also the type of substance that caused the stains. If you have to deal with a large number of stubborn, non-identifiable stains or many walls to be cleaned, rely instead on professionals to avoid damaging your white walls.
