Getting paint off hands and arms

[Anonymous]

FTM here. DC started preschool today. When I went to pick him up, his hands and arms were covered with paint marks. I assumed I could easily take them off, but I was mistaken. We tried soap and water and rigorous scrubbing first, but you can still see faded marks. I tried alcohol wipes, that didn't do anything. What's the secret to getting paint off of kids' skin?

[Anonymous]

Your skin cells are constantly (and naturally) sloughing off and getting replaced with fresh new ones.

Just leave it alone. It fades quickly (see above).You're going overboard with scrubbing, alcohol, and whatever.

[Anonymous]

Dish soap gets a whole lot of things off kids and fabrics.

[Anonymous]

It drives me nuts too but they should be using kid friendly (non toxic) stuff so it’ll be okay. Now, getting that stuff out of clothes? Impossible.

[Anonymous]

Try some cold cream.

[Anonymous]

Congrats on the start to preschool! Agree that lotion or cold cream sometimes works for us when soap doesn’t. Our kid gets into tree sap sometimes, that’s my favorite one to have to get off.

[Anonymous]

Chill. It’ll come off after a couple of baths. You don’t want your kid to be anxious about painting or getting dirty at school.

[Anonymous]

Ask to see what paint they are using because different types clean differently. I’m surprised though, our daycare paint comes off easily from soap and water and doesn’t need scrubbing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chill. It’ll come off after a couple of baths. You don’t want your kid to be anxious about painting or getting dirty at school.

The poster did not seem particularly un-chill.

[Anonymous]

Veteran mom here. If it didn't come off with soap and water, I would just leave it. Or, an extra long bubble bath should loosen it up.
Let this serve as a reminder to forget about dressing your kid in expensive or delicate clothes. If you can't get the paint off skin, imagine how hard it is to get it out of fabric.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chill. It’ll come off after a couple of baths. You don’t want your kid to be anxious about painting or getting dirty at school.

This is true. Check the markers they have at school and make sure they are the kind that wash off easy. It's a certain marker.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the type of paint. In 7th grade I found that with tempera (paint made from egg yolk), soap worked better the higher the coconut content -- although I didn't realize then that that was what was doing it. So though both Lava and Lifebuoy were supplied, Lifebuoy worked better. The higher 12-carbon (lauric) content of Lifebuoy (which uses the same soap stock as Lux) worked better than the pumice in Lava. (The pumice soap probably was better for getting out sculpting clay.) Therefore to remove tempera paint, Kirk's all-coconut soap would probably work best. However, this was before soapless liquid "soaps" were widely available.

Getting off oil paints would probably be a similar job to getting off tempera. However, I'd strongly doubt they'd be giving children that age oils. In fact, I don't see why they wouldn't use easier-to-remove paints like water colors.

As to getting stuff from under fingernails, I'd recommend soaking. Skin swells with water, and pushes dirt out from under nails.