Removing Nicotine Stains

Even if you have quit smoking, you may have unpleasant stains still lingering on your teeth and fingers from nicotine and other chemicals in cigarettes. You may want to remove stains from years of somebody else's smoking from your walls, ceilings, or curtains. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

You can wash nicotine stains off your walls with a mixture of hot water and a small amount of trisodium phosphate (TSP). Use the solutions to gently scrub the walls in a circular motion.

If you have left smoke stains on your walls for many years, they may never come clean. You may have to repaint your walls, and before you can paint over the cigarette smoking stains, you need to use a primer. Ask at your local paint store for advice. If you wash your walls about once a year with the hot water and TSP, it will be easier to keep them stain free.

You could also try straight ammonia on the walls but do this at a time when you can keep all the windows and doors open, as the fumes can be quite overpowering. Use a mop or scrub while wearing rubber gloves to protect your hands. You may also want to wear goggles in case of splashing.

Rather than straight ammonia, you could try a mixture of half ammonia, half vinegar with a few squirts of liquid dish detergent. You still need to wear rubber gloves and goggles. Mix the ammonia and vinegar in a bucket, add in the dish detergent, and use a sponge or a mop to scrub the walls. Again, make sure the room you are in is very well ventilated.

You could also try a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser on smaller areas that you want to get clean; it works but can take quite a bit of effort. Just wet the sponge and rub the area you wish to clean.

There are also several products available that you can use to try to get nicotine off of walls.

To get nicotine stains out of clothes, try soaking them overnight in a basin of water with a denture-cleaning tablet. This method works with white clothes. For other colors, soak the clothing overnight in a basin of water saturated with powdered laundry detergent, then wash it normally in the washing machine. Do not put the clothing in the dryer—air dry it to see if the stain has come out.

Many people have problems with nicotine stains on their fingers. It can take time to remove these, but it can be done. One method is to wash the stained surface of the finger with lemon juice, then rub gently with a pumice stone—do not scrub. You could also mix the lemon juice with salt and lightly scrub, but do not follow with the pumice stone. This scrubbing will lighten the stain, and you should be able to do this about once a week until the stain has gone. Make sure you are not scrubbing your skin raw.