How to Get Deodorant off the Wall

Yes, you read that right.  During naptime earlier this week, while the rest of the house was sleeping, my precious son decided to take my stick of deodorant from my bedroom and smear it in several different places in his bedroom.  In his words, they were drawings of "dinosaurs".  Some were just practice ones because they didn't turn out, and then one or two were "good ones".

For me, it meant several really sticky, greasy messes to clean up.  His locations of choice included two places on the wall, the headboard of his bed, the side of his dresser, and the wicker ottoman that sits beside his bed.  Yes, wicker.  So of course, the deodorant was also embedded in the little cracks between the fibre weaves.

How I cleaned it up:

1. Having never had to clean deodorant off of anything before, my immediate reaction was to head to my trusty friend, Google.  Believe it or not, apparently this kind of thing hasn't happened before, or at least, it hasn't happened to anybody who's thought to write about it and share their wisdom with the rest of the world.  The best I could come up with was how to get deodorant stains out of clothing...not really all that helpful.

2. Since Google failed me (*sob* I can't believe it...), and I was left to my own devices, I decided to attempt to tackle the problem using the old tried and true method of vinegar and hot water.  I made sure the water was as hot as I could stand, and I added a significant splash of vinegar to the bucket to make the solution as effective as I possibly could.

3. Then I took a regular kitchen cloth, and Reuben and I went off to the bedroom to do some serious scrubbing.  (His punishment was that he had to stay inside and help me clean up while Daddy and Kaylee went out to play in the sprinkler.  One of these days, he's going to learn he's not allowed to take Mommy's things from Mommy's bedroom.)  So we set to scrubbing with less than stellar results.  Deodorant is extremely greasy, and it didn't take long before my cloth was coated in it.  It was very difficult to rinse off, so that by the time I got to the last and worst section of deodorant-covered wall, it took me quite some time to get it cleaned enough to call our job done.  In the end, it felt like all I was doing was smearing the deodorant around more, and you could still see the greasy outline of my son's "dinosaur" drawing.

4. Talking to my Mum later, she suggested dish soap as a way to cut the grease, so I went back for a second shot at the residue I just couldn't get off with the vinegar and water mixture.  The dish soap seemed to work well, although it took quite a lot of rinsing to get the soap off the wall.  Unfortunately, I think I waited too long to try it because after the wall dried, you can still see a grease stain on the wall, but I couldn't feel anymore residue on my fingers.  It really doesn't help that the paint someone used in that room is the non-glossy stuff, so everything just soaks right down into it right away.  Whoever THAT genius was clearly wasn't thinking when they painted a potential child's bedroom with that kind of paint...

In conclusion, I think dish soap is the answer for getting deodorant off the wall...or any other surface it might happen to have been rubbed on.  Heck, it may even be the solution for getting it out of clothes, although the Google searches generally conclude the vinegar and baking soda option works best. 

I think from now on I'm going to keep my deodorant under lock and key...