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Jamie asked: How do I remove silly putty from carpet? The stain is old. I was able to remove the solid silly putty from the carpet. However, the pink stain remains despite numerous treatments with Resolve and lots of elbow grease! The carpet is off-white Berber.
Silly 
putty is a great toy for children of all ages, but when it meets the carpet, it quickly loses its thrill. Fortunately, it can be removed with a little time and effort and no damage to the carpet.
You Will Need:
- Spoon or dull knife
- Cotton balls
- Rubbing alcohol
- Spray bottle
- Water
- Soft cloths or towels
Steps to Remove the Silly Putty:
- Start by scraping as much putty away as possible using the spoon or dull knife.
- Once the majority of the putty is removed, its time to work on the small amount left behind.
- Moisten a cotton ball with a good amount of rubbing alcohol.
- Blot the silly putty with the rubbing alcohol.
- It may be helpful to allow the rubbing alcohol to set for a minute on the residue, but is not always necessary.
- Use a clean cloth to gently scrub the area.
- Be cautious not to push the putty further into the carpet. It may help to either rub in a circular motion or blot at the area with a clean cloth.
- Continue blotting at the residue until all of the putty is removed.
- Rinse the area with a clean cloth moistened with plain water.
- Blot with a clean cloth to dry.
- When the putty is removed and the area has been rinsed, lay a clean cloth over the area and apply pressure for a few minutes to absorb any remaining moisture.
- Allow the area to air-dry completely.
Additional Tips and Ideas
- No rubbing alcohol available? Try using hand sanitizer instead.
- If the putty is really stubborn, add some WD-40 to the area to help lubricate it for easier removal.
- If the putty is not removed using the methods above, try rubbing over it with Fels Naptha Soap.
- Mayo or white vinegar are two other products that have been used to successfully remove silly putty.
- If the putty is pushed deep into the pile and you can’t get it out, you can cut out a square of the carpet and replace it with a matching piece.
- If there is a dye stain that remains after all of the putty has been removed, try a foming carpet cleaner.
I also found that a tooth brush helped getting it out after the rubbing alcohol was blotted on.
Wow! Amazing! Thank you! It worked. 😀
Worked like a charm! Just pouring some rubbing alcohol on it and using the toothbrush is faster than blotting. It came up really easily, then I used a dry towel to soak up the alcohol. 🙂 Thanks
I can’t speak to “old, dried out” Silly Putty, but if fresh…
I was about to try some of the more extreme solutions from the web using alcohol & WD-40 when something occurred to me: Silly Putty is sticky to itself!
I grabbed a fair glob of my kid’s Silly Putty and started to work it into a warm and very malleable state. I then stuck it into the couch fabric it was pressed into. As I doubed the glob of silly putty onto the smaller clumps – it started to come up! I then tried it on the carpet where there was a big glob I had ground in further by trying to remove by hand – same excellent results! No stains, no chemicals! Just a little bit of time & effort daubing it out! The Silly Putty picked up a bunch of fabric lint but who cares? (It didn’t seem to hurt it anyway! Lol)
It really works! I did it and it came out good; not a spot left.
Oh yeah, that works! The Silly Putty was green, well ground in and over a week old… Just worked it gently and steady for a bit, as described in the instructions… all gone.
I can’t believe this worked. I spent ages trying to get it off using the rest of the original piece of silly putty. I even tried a knife, but there was still a huge amount of blue silly putty in the carpet. It was a big circle of it about 15 cm round. Then, I used the alcohol hand gel that I have for work and put a few blobs on and rubbed with a microfiber cloth and hey presto, the whole thing disappeared. Am stunned!!
Thank you!!
This worked as just stated. The rubbing alcohol, some elbow grease and in a few minutes it was all in the cotton ball!
Excellent!
One of my children dared to bounce the science putty ball on our (belongs to the landlords actually) cream carpets. It got stuck quite well. The size of an apple. We cleaned as much as we could, but the area was still black. So, I squeezed some antibacterial on it and got even worse. I left it for a few hours to relax from the shock. I was close to tears. Then, I scrapped the spot again with a spoon and sprayed WD-40 and this time I used a tooth brush. It was transforming right in front of my eyes. Eventually, I cleaned the spot with wipes and soapy water. What a nightmare, but I would not have done it without your website!
Left a pink tint on my carpet, but it worked well. 🙂
I have no words to describe how incredible this was. I am a student in highschool and we made silly putty in class by using Elmer’s glue, water, and borax. However, I am a foolish girl and I left my homemade silly putty on a small bedside table unattended. I don’t know if any of you have ever dealt with homemade silly putty, but let me tell you, it spreads out to a great extent when on a flat surface. So when I came back to my room hours later, I found that most of the putty had dripped down onto the carpet. I was horrified. My dad is a neat freak and I knew I would be in big trouble over ruining the carpet. I tried to scrape it out, but it seemed to have melted into the fibers. Panicking, I googled how to remove silly putty and I discovered this gift from heaven above. I scrambled together all that I would need, substituting rubbing alchohol for hydrogen peroxide (it was all I could find without risk of disturbing my household and being forced to explain why I needed such stuff in the middle of the night). Crossing my fingers, I went to work. And let me tell you, it worked like magic. The silly putty seemed to magically disappear with the help of a little elbow grease. All of it. And there had been a lot. I was concerned that after the silly putty had seeped into the carpet for a few hours, it’s light blue color would be permanately imprinted into the fibers. But not so. Even the dye came out because of this miracle tip. There is not a trace of putty left and I have successfully made a clean getaway. Thank you whoever discovered this; thank you.
It worked. I didn’t use it for carpet, but for my phone case. It still worked.
I also found out that a wet towel and a fork works; only a few spots left.
I doubted that using the silly putty to clean silly putty was going to work because it had been so melted and ground into the carpet!
I was wrong!!
At first it seemed like the putty in my hands was getting left on the carpet too… but then, right before I was about to give up, I started using more rapid pulls and it all came out!!!
Holy crap! THANK YOU PAUL^^^^ Saved me a ton of work and toil!
Alcohol worked great! My daughter got a sparkly blue putty/slime on a rub and a fabric ottoman. I doused it with alcohol and used cotton balls to scrub it out. It was hard to believe anything would get it out–but it did!