Removing Chewing Gum from Shirts

For anyone that chews gum, which happens to be most of us, at some point or another there, will come a time when the gum gets stuck on something. Most often this something will be made of fabric, such as a shirt. Removing chewing gum from shirts (and other fabrics) is a fairly easy thing to do, as long as you take care to follow the proper steps. The simplest way to begin removing chewing gum is by following these steps.

1. Freeze the gum. In the event that the gum has already dried, you can simply scrape the off of your shirt. If you happened to find the gum in your shirt or blouse while it was still soft, you will need to first freeze it. You can do this by either rubbing an ice cube across the gum or by placing the shirt into your freezer. Once the gum has been frozen thoroughly, scrape it from the fabric. Use a credit card or butter knife to carefully scrape the gum from your shirt. Do not press too hard, or you may end up damaging the shirt.
2. Use a cleaning solvent. Once you have the gum removed from your shirt, you still have a stain to deal with. Sponge the stained area using a cleaning solvent. One of the better cleaning solvents that you can use is called Motsenbockers's Lift Off, or you can use your favorite one instead. Sponge the area thoroughly, and then rinse using the same method. Repeat the process a few times to ensure that you get as much of the gum stain off as possible before you wash the garment.
3. Pretreat the stain. After you have used the cleaning solvent you will need to pretreat whatever remains of the stain. When you do this you can use just about any commercial prewash stain remover. Follow the directions carefully as you apply the stain remover, since you can easily cause some damage to your shirt or garment if you are not careful.
4. Launder as normal. You have now completed all of the preparatory work for removing chewing gum from shirts. All you have to do now is launder your shirt, or other garment, as you normally would. If, after washing you still find that you have a stain feel free to repeat steps two through four as many times as necessary until the stain has been finally removed.