Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Interlibrary Loan of the day


At first glance, 1,001 Secret Household Formulas & Money-$aving Tips is a book geared more toward evil megalomaniacs than superheroes. Folks like Lex Luthor or the Floronic Man are always messing around with some sort of secret formula, usually to the detriment of the human race. Because of this, secret formulas have gotten something of a bad rap in the superhero community, and there is a great deal of prejudice against lone madmen tinkering away in isolated laboratories. Hopefully this book will help alleviate some of this bigotry. It's packed full of useful formulas, but Captain ILL is most excited by this one on page 255:

Ink Eradicator:
1 Part of citric acid
2 Parts of Borax
16 Parts of distilled water

Place the citric acid and water in a medium bowl and mix well, then add the borax and mix well. Saturate the spot with the mixture and allow it to stand 2-3 minutes before removing and laundering the garment.

This will be particularly useful for Captain ILL since he's always getting Sharpie stains on his costume, and even occasionally on his jeans while he's in his secret identity. It certainly sounds much more effective than laundering the Sharpie-stained item until it fades, which was previously the only option available.

3 comments:

groovelily said...

Wash it until it fades!? What kind of groovy person would suggest such a thing? They obviously didn't know there was a secret ink removing formula. Maybe you can bottle it and sell it, so the rest of the world doesn't have to try the "wash it until it fades" method.

thisandthat said...

With words like "secret...formulas", "eradicator",and ingredients such as "acid", this book sounds just a little scary to me. It's no wonder this sort of thing attracts the evil megalomaniacs that the Captain speaks of. I think the best thing to do is to avoid Sharpie stains in the first place. Perhaps color coordinate your sharpie of the day with your wardrobe, then you'll never be embarrassed by those unsightly stains again. (but that's just me...)

HR Girl said...

Wonder if there was anything in that book about how to get Sharpie off skin? HR Girl's kids tangled with the wrong end of the Sharpie (okay maybe it was intentional drawing on the skin)--but the wash it until it fades is going to take awhile...