How To Get Plaster, Drywall Or Joint Compound Out Of Clothes (Hint: Don’t Wipe)
“Just wipe it with a wet rag. How hard can it be?”
This is where things go wrong!
Cleaning plaster, drywall dust, or joint compound from your clothes with a wet rag is the biggest mistake you’ll make.
Sounds crazy?
Don’t worry! In this guide, you’ll find out why and how to clean it the right way. So next time, you don’t end with a rocky mess all over your T-shirt.
In the end, nobody wants to look like the Thing from Fantastic Four. Right?
How to Get Plaster Out of Clothes?
Plaster on your clothes has one gigantic feature many forget—it dries in a flash. That’s why dried plaster is the easiest to clean!
So, never, ever, in a thousand lifetimes, clean plaster when it’s still in a liquid state. You’ll spread it all over your working T-shirt, making even a bigger mess!
Here’s how you should do it instead:
- Wait for the plaster to solidify.
- Peal it out of your clothes.
- Treat the area with a baking soda paste.
- Put your T-shirt or pants into the washing machine.
- Set to normal wash cycle.
💡 Cleaning the plaster area with baking soda neutralizes any white salt stains the solidified plaster might produce.
How Do You Remove Drywall from Clothing? Debunking a Dusty Myth
Here’s the myth about cleaning drywall out of clothes: If you throw clothes filled with drywall dust into the washing machine, you may as well say goodbye to your machine and get ready to buy a new one.
That’s not entirely true.
Drywall dust is made out of plaster and its hygroscopic salts. A perfect combination for absorbing water. But for drywall dust to damage your washing machine, your clothes need to contain TONS of it!
That begs the question—how much drywall did you need to lay?
How To Get Dried Drywall Out Of Clothes — Debunking a Dusty Myth
Jokes aside – this is how you clean drywall dust out of clothes, the RIGHT WAY:
- Take your clothes outside and shake them out
- Leave them for a couple of minutes outside for the dust to settle down
- Shake them out one more time
- Bring them in and drop them into the washing machine
- Wash with a Normal program
⚠️ Try not to breathe in any of that white stuff—drywall dust can cause severe throat and eye irritation!
By shaking your clothes outside, drywall dust effortlessly escapes from the fabric.
If you’re feeling a bit lazy, you also have the option to hang it up outdoors and allow the wind to do its magic. Don’t expect that you can wash them the same day though (especially if the wind’s not in the mood to grace you with its presence)!
Does Drywall Dust Wash Out of Clothes?
Drywall contains salts. Tiny, nasty stuff for your fabric. If not treated with proper care, can create white salts stains.
Removing such stains ain’t easy—you might even think of chucking your clothes into the garbage a couple of times while you’re at it!
Here’s what you can do to avoid those stains: Drop a tablespoon of baking soda into your washing machine with an eco-friendly laundry detergent.
💡 A mix of laundry detergent and baking soda act as a neutralizer of salt stains. Many laundry cleaning products are aggressive and deteriorating for fabric. Plus, mixed with salts, they create a bigger mess.
Is Joint Compound Easy to Remove?
Cleaning joint compounds out of clothes is on a whole new level! It’s like dealing with plaster but with a mix of elasticity.
Let me explain: Joint compound is a mix of plaster with god-knows-what-different additives. They give the joint compound its elasticity and workability.
It also gives you a bit of a headache since the joint compound needs a LOT of time to dry out!
Oh, and did I mention joint compound is finer and silkier than plaster?
With those properties, joint compound goes deeper into the fabric than plaster and drywall dust. The deeper it goes, the harder it is to clean.
There is a huge difference between joint compound (also known as drywall mud and spackle). Spackle is even more elastic and dries quicker. By quicker, I mean in half-of-an-hour quicker. So cleaning it out of clothes is a lot easier than joint compound.
An Easy Solution to a Rocky Problem
Cleaning wet joint compound out of clothes is like cleaning a toothbrush paste. The more you scrub, the messier it gets. When dried, it leaves a nasty stain nobody likes to look at!
⚠️ DO NOT put your clothes with joint compound into the washing right out of the bat. Otherwise, you’ll destroy your washing machine and end up with a clogged filter and water pump!
Here’s how to deal with joint compound on clothes:
- Wait until the stain solidifies.
- Mix a tablespoon of baking soda and two ounces of vinegar into a spray bottle of water.
- Spray the mix over the hardened joint compound.
- Rub the pieces of clothes together to crumble the joint compound.
- When all the joint compound has crumbled, spray a couple of dashes of your mix onto the spot.
- Wait for a couple of minutes and put it into your washing machine.
- Add your preferred laundry detergent and set the machine to normal cycle.
What’s The Trick? Wet hardened joint compound deteriorates and crumbles!
Using the baking-soda-vinegar-cleaning-mix, you’re bound to speed up the process. The acidic part of vinegar eats the joint compound and the neutralizing part of baking soda takes care of any stains the joint compound might give your clothes.
Are you currently remodeling your place? Know that your shirt is bound to catch a couple of free-falling compound blobs.
Before washing your clothes, use a hammer to crumble the joint compound—not the big one! A small one or a plastic mallet would do great. Hammering those blobs of compound on your clothes will turn them into dust before you say “Hammerhead”!
What’s the Takeaway?
Cleaning drywall dust, plaster, and joint compound out of clothes aren’t hard to do. Dealing with these materials is messy, but cleaning them the right way will make your T-shirt look brand new!
You don’t need any fancy cleaning tools or pricy detergents. All you do need is a little help of everyday kitchen ingredients like baking soda and vinegar. And a little bit of hammering, here, and there could be also useful!
Frequently Asked Questions
Does joint compound come out of clothes?
Yes!
Even though it takes ages to dry out, the joint compound does get out of clothes. Getting it to dry out is a must-do before cleaning it! A dried compound is a compound that crumbles into tiny pieces! Then it’s as easy as ABC cleaning it out of clothes.
How do you get dried cement out of clothes?
Cement has one ENORMOUS flaw that plaster doesn’t—it sticks to the fabric like velcro! Or even better than velcro!
So, cleaning cement out of clothes is completely different than cleaning plaster.
To effortlessly clean cement out of your clothes sweep it thoroughly with a cloth brush. If any of the cement dots are left, sweep it one more time. Then, drop it into your washing machine and set it to normal with a slightly higher temperature.
💡 Cement doesn’t like heat. So washing your cloth at a higher temperature will dissolve the tiny cement pieces.
