English Component

Are Sharpies Permanent?

When my mother was at work she noticed that someone had written on the dry erase board with a sharpie. When she told me the story and had explained that she did not know how to remove the sharpie off the board, I became curious about what removes sharpie stains from other surfaces such as Glass, Wood, and Cloth. With this curiosity I found the driving question, Are Sharpies really permanent?

Everyone assumes that once you mark something with sharpie it is impossible to remove the stain. Is it impossible to remove Sharpie? So with this curiosity of how to remove sharpie marks I began to create procedures and an experiment to test what products will remove sharpie from each surface. The material needed: A piece of wood, a glass jar, a small piece of cloth, non-acetone nail polish remover, water, gloves, scotch tape, table cloth, baking soda, cotton swabs, bleach, alcohol wipes and a Sharpie marker. Place a tablecloth over the surface that you are conducting the experiment on. Next I placed five Sharpie marks on each surface (wood, Sharpie, and cloth). Then soaked the cotton swabs in each solution then wiped it over the sharpie mark (repeated for each solution on each of the different surfaces). With the use of different chemicals it is important to make sure the chemicals do not make contact with skin or eyes. For safety precautions wear goggles and gloves. Since we are also using bleach sure to be wearing an apron so it does not spill onto your clothes.

In the end Sharpie was removed from the wood with Bleach, Alcohol wipes, Non-acetone nail polish remover and Baking soda. Sharpie was removed from the glass jar with Non-acetone nail polish remover, Baking soda, Alcohol wipes, and partially removed with Bleach and water. On the piece of cloth Sharpie was not able to be removed with any of the solutions. Both the nail polish remover and the alcohol wipes contain Isopropyl Alcohol which is a type of polar alcohol. Alcohol can dissolve polar and nonpolar substances. Permanent markers are non-polar, therefore Alcohol Wipes and Non-acetone nail polish remover can remove permanent marker stains.

In many cases surface are ruined by Sharpies, pens, ink, etc. So this experiment we are able to know what can or can not be removed from different surfaces, and what products can be used to remove the stain.