Fix for scratchy tagless tshirts?

October 3, 2022 8:02 AM

I have a bunch of t-shirts that I got at the same time. They're great, I wear them often. They're tagless, with a printed logo where the tag would go. As I've washed them, this printed logo has started to come apart, and the pieces left behind have rough, uncomfortable edges. Surely this is a solveable problem - is there a way that I can just get the rest of the logo off somehow? Something else I haven't thought of? This problem is weirdly un-googleable, because I just get a bunch of ads for shirts, but I'm sure someone has a solution.
posted by Ragged Richard to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (7 answers total)

Have you tried to brush the logo off with a clothes brush or a dry, clean, soft tooth brush? Have you tried to rub it off gently with a soft nylon sponge? You don't want to pull at the fabric too much to avoid stretching it out but you could go up and down gently with the grain to see if that helps.
posted by koahiatamadl at 8:20 AM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

If it's screen printed directly to the fabric there are various techniques for removing the ink. This page has 7 of them, I'd try acetone or maybe heating it with iron while pressing a piece of paper in between to try and lift it off.

There are solvents that can dissolve vinyl/ink as well.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:39 AM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Rub the area with a dry microfibre cloth? The friction usually takes it off. I've even resorted to using an emery board or fine sandpaper.
posted by tipsyBumblebee at 8:44 AM on October 3, 2022

At some point in the shedding process there will be a lot of loose, flappy corners that could be peeled up with duct tape or ripped off with tweezers - though this may leave some tenacious bits behind. The tweezing is easier (though still, y'know, super tedious, and I only recommend it to weird pickers and seam-ripper-wielders like myself) when the shirt is still wet and the surface fibers that the ink is sticking to are weaker and looser and not shrunken back into the fabric.
posted by fountainofdoubt at 8:47 AM on October 3, 2022

use strong sticky tape to pull it off?
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:56 AM on October 3, 2022

I say get an needle nose pliers and pull them off, then use small hard brush to scrape off the remnants.
posted by kschang at 11:12 AM on October 3, 2022

Ideas for if the fabric is too delicate to sucessfully remove the flaking label:

You can try ironing the area to see if the flaking plastic print will flatten again.

Cover the area with soft cloth tape.
posted by Jane the Brown at 1:59 PM on October 4, 2022