With the popularity of gel pens increasing over the last few years, it is not surprising that we have noticed more and more people reaching out to ask for ways to remove gel pen ink from paper. One of the most commonly used methods is to dip a cotton swab into some lemon juice and then gently dab the area of the paper with the cotton swap to dissolve the gel ink. Once you have your paper cleanly erased, you might realize that you have an ink stain on your clothes.

Erasers | JetPens The Best Erasers | JetPens

Although a product like Whiteout is our number one recommendation to our readers looking to remove ink mistakes from their paper, the popularity of correction tape is increasing with each passing year. At the time of writing, correction tape is very close to becoming just as popular as Whiteout as it does not have the issue of being applied to your paper in a liquid form. Similar to the lemon juice method covered above, many people will place a cotton bud in some acetone-based nail polish removed and then dab the bud on the paper where their ink mistake is to remove it. The issue with using this method is that it also almost always ends up causing problems with your paper due to the harsh chemicals being used and the only real, viable way to remove pen ink from paper without acetone is to cover it up using correction tape. Does Hairspray Get Out Ink Of Paper? There are lots of wite out and correction pens available to buy, but The BIC Wite-Out Shake ‘n Squeeze Correction Pen stands out from the crowd and is one we recommend.

If you try to write over the erased area with washable ink again, it reacts with the correction fluid left on the paper by the ink eraser pen. It also turns out that this eraser is a huge hit with crafters for removing watercolor, glue, and ink smudges and is recommended on YouTube by Jennifer McGuire in one of her crafty videos. Wite-Out Correction Fluid The idea is to paint over the area you want to correct, and then when it is dry, rewrite over it the same as you would with wite out.

Correction and Erasers | WHSmith

Not all pen erasers are created equal, and one eraser stands out from the crowd. The Tombow Mono Sand Eraser 512A. Another popular option that we see people asking about is for products that will actually dissolve the ink right of the paper. In theory, this is perfect as you simply dissolve the ink to remove your mistake while leaving the paper unharmed. Unfortunately, in practise this is not as simple as it sounds due to most inks being either pigment or dye based. This means they usually require either hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol to dissolve them. Prevention is better than cure, and this is certainly true when it comes to removing pen marks from paper. Although hairspray can remove ink, it is almost always used to get ink out of clothing rather than off paper. This is due to the uncontrollable nature of using the hairspray directly from the bottle meaning that it can end up covering large portions of your paper and causing issues with large chunks of your text. On top of this, it is very rare that using hairspray to get ink our of paper will not also end up having some level of an effect on the paper itself too so we would advice against it. Can Vinegar Remove Ink Stains From Paper? They work because the rubber is quite coarse, and as you rub, you are removing a very tiny amount of paper.

While researching white gouache, I came across this great article at Comic Tools where he recommends a product called White Out by Deleter which, when dried, can be drawn over almost as well as paper. As we touched on above, using a cheap, high-quality Whiteout product will almost always be your best option for removing pen ink from paper without damaging it no matter what type of pen or type of ink you are using. That said though, there are a number of people who prefer not to use whiteout on their documents after making a mistake and we have a number of other methods that you are able to use below. How To Erase Pen With Tape? Although this can definitely remove the ink stain from the paper, the main problem is the high acidity of the lemon juice often causing problems with the paper. Problems can range from discoloring due to the yellow tint of the lemon juice to outright changing the texture of the paper. This is why we recommend something like Whiteout so much to our readers when it comes to removing pen ink from paper. An alternative and very effective way of erasing the ink is by covering it up so that it can no longer be seen and writing over the top of it. We’ve been doing a lot of testing to figure out the best ways to remove ink from paper. Here is one of our ink removal test sheets…