Last Updated on September 22, 2026 by Umar Farooq
Find out which paint it is before you touch the stain. Water-based paint — latex, acrylic, emulsion, kids’ poster paint — scrapes off and rinses out from the back of the fabric with warm water and a little detergent. Oil-based paint needs a solvent such as turpentine, and a garment treated with solvent must be rinsed and hand washed before it goes anywhere near a machine.
That last clause is the one almost every paint guide leaves out, and it is the only part of this job with a fire risk attached.
Read the tin before you read the label
Maytag splits it in one sentence: “Water-based paints like latex and acrylic can be easier to remove because they dissolve in water. Oil-based paints may be more challenging and require solvents like turpentine” (how to get paint out of clothes).
That is the whole fork. Everything else follows from it, and treating one as the other wastes the window you have.
If you do not know which you have, the tin tells you — and so does how you cleaned the brush. A brush rinsed under the tap was in water-based paint. A brush that needed white spirit was in oil-based. Failing both, dab the wet edge of the stain with a damp cloth: water-based paint will move, oil-based will not.
Water-based paint: scrape, then rinse from the back
Latex, acrylic and household emulsion all come out the same way, and the order matters more than the products.
- Scrape the excess off with a dull knife, spoon or old credit card. Lift it — do not rub, which pushes pigment into the weave.
- Turn the garment inside out and rinse the stain from the back. Maytag calls this out specifically: “This is an important step. Since latex and acrylic are water-based paints, the running water will keep the paint active and make it easier to remove.” Rinsing from the front drives the paint deeper; rinsing from the back pushes it out the way it came in.
- Work in a small amount of detergent — Maytag’s figure is about an eighth of a teaspoon of liquid detergent or dish soap. Lather it, scrub gently with a cloth, rinse, repeat until nothing more lifts.
- Machine wash in the warmest water the care tag allows. Which band that is depends on the fabric: what temperature to wash clothes.
- Line dry and check. Maytag: “Heat from a dryer will set any stain left behind that you can’t see while the fabric is wet.”
Acrylic behaves slightly differently from house emulsion once it has dried, because it cures into a plastic film rather than just drying out — that case has its own page.
Oil-based paint, and the warning that belongs with it
Gloss, enamel, alkyd and artists’ oils will not shift in water. You need the thinner named on the tin, or turpentine.
The method: test the solvent on a hidden seam first, then blot the stain from the back with solvent on a cloth, replacing the cloth as paint transfers. Rinse the area with warm water, rub in some detergent, and soak the garment overnight in hot soapy water before laundering.
Now the part to take seriously. Maytag prints this as a standing note rather than a footnote:
> “Do not put articles in your washer or dryer that have been previously cleaned, washed, soaked or spotted with gasoline, dry-cleaning solvents, or other flammable or explosive substances.”
Turpentine and paint thinner are in that category. A garment still carrying solvent goes into a sealed drum and then, if you are unlucky, into a heated dryer. Rinse it thoroughly, hand wash it, and let the smell go completely before the machine sees it. Most paint guides hand you turpentine in one paragraph and tell you to machine wash in the next.
Dried paint is not automatically lost
Scrape first, as much as will come away. Then rinse the back with warm running water and blot with a half-and-half mix of detergent and warm water, working at it until nothing more appears on the cloth.
If that stalls, an oxygen-based stain remover buys time rather than force. OxiClean’s own instruction for dried paint is to saturate the stain and “let stand for 5 minutes or up to a week, depending on the severity”, then wash warm (how to get paint out of clothes). A week is not a typo, and it is the most useful thing on that page — dried paint responds to duration far better than to scrubbing.
Their exclusions matter too: not on silk, wool, leather or dry-clean-only, and no longer than five minutes on anything prone to colour change.
The one case that is genuinely finished: paint that has already been through a hot dryer. The heat sets it, and nothing on this page reverses that.
Before you start on how to get paint out of clothes, three checks
- The care tag. Dry-clean-only means the solvent decisions are not yours to make. Symbols are decoded in laundry symbols.
- A hidden seam. Test whatever you are about to use somewhere invisible — turpentine and acetone both strip dye, and some synthetics dissolve outright.
- The clock. Wet paint is a ten-minute job. Dry paint is an afternoon. Nothing about this improves with waiting.
Grass and plant pigment behave differently again, and that sequence is in how to remove grass stains.
FAQ
Does paint wash out of clothes?
Water-based paint usually does, if it is treated before it dries and before the garment goes through a dryer. Oil-based needs a solvent first.
How do you get dried paint out of clothes?
Scrape the excess, rinse the back with warm water, then blot with a half detergent, half water mix. An oxygen stain remover left on for hours or days is the next step.
What removes paint from clothes?
Liquid detergent or dish soap for water-based paint. Turpentine or the thinner named on the tin for oil-based. Oxygen stain remover for dried paint of either kind.
Can you put clothes with turpentine on them in the washing machine?
Not directly. Maytag warns against putting anything spotted with flammable solvents into a washer or dryer. Rinse and hand wash first.
Why should you rinse paint from the back of the fabric?
Because it pushes the paint out the way it went in. Rinsing from the front drives pigment further into the weave.
Is paint on clothes permanent once dried?
Not usually — but it is once it has been through a hot dryer. That is the point where the odds drop sharply.
Read the tin, then keep it out of the dryer
Check the tin, rinse from the back, and keep the garment out of the dryer until the mark has genuinely gone. Water-based paint is one of the easier stains on this site. Oil-based is harder, and the solvent that fixes it is the one thing here that can turn a stained shirt into a safety problem.
