How to clean food coloring off skin?

Question

With the holidays coming up, I decided to do some baking. The recipes asked for food coloring to be used in the dough. This means the color was kneaded into it and I failed to wear gloves. As a result, my hands are now colored with spots of red and green.

I've tried soaking them in warm water and washing with soap, but my skin is still stained.

How can I remove the food coloring from my skin?

Colored appendages are really a thing with you, huh? – Pops Dec 21 '15 at 19:18 — Pops, Dec 21 '15 at 19:18
Try something with oil, coconut or olive. – L.B. Dec 30 '15 at 18:29 — L.B., Dec 30 '15 at 18:29

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 21 '15 at 19:21

6

First rinse all excess coloring(which I assume you already did), next use a cloth and put some white vinegar on it, rub the stains off with this cloth. Once the cloth is too stained you can either rinse it or use another one.

EDIT:

Found amazing resources in this wikihow, they mention the use of:

baking soda
toothpaste
dish soap
shaving cream
baby oil
alcohol

apparently there are a lot of out-of-the-box methods to remove food coloring stains, best of luck!

answered Dec 21 '15 at 19:21

Just Do It

1,188
9
21

2

Should the alcohol be applied topically or internally? ;-) – Digital Trauma Dec 22 '15 at 01:32
2

@DigitalTrauma Internally is the recommendation, but the medical community has found only temporary, albeit effective, treatment of the symptoms – nicholaswmin Dec 22 '15 at 01:54
oh you... :^) @DigitalTrauma – Just Do It Dec 23 '15 at 16:16
A lemon half rubbed on the hands works with some colourants (and many fruit stains on hands). – KalleMP Dec 23 '15 at 23:25

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 22 '15 at 05:52

If you still find it hard to remove colour, you can surely use kerosene. It is used to remove hard colouring agents like paint that is used for colouring buildings.Procedure is as follows:

1.Pour some drop of kerosene over your hand and rub firmly against each other.

2.If colours are being removed, you can stop it over there and move to cleaning step.Otherwise you can use a small piece of cloth having rough surface and rub your affected area over it.

3.The colour should actually go by this step.

Cleaning steps:

1.Do not waste the kerosene.You can collect it using a piece of cloth or paper and later use of for ignition in hearth.

2.Wash your hands properly so that even the smell of kerosene should be gone.

How to clean food coloring off skin?

2 Answers2