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by brudgers 456 days ago
If you want to remove Sharpie, use IPA...isopropyl alcohol...India pale ale remains useless.
4 comments

Isopropyl removes all inks and glues. It's incredible.

It's also fantastic to wash your hands with when doing cell and tissue cultures and trying to avoid contamination.

Ideally used to sterilize while gloves are on your hands… be mindful of your skin microbiome!
It's also similarly great for killing braincells when auto-applied orally
No. You're thinking of ethyl alcohol. If you ingest isopropyl alcohol you're gonna have a bad day.

Oh and make sure the label on the ethyl alcohol does not contain the word "DENATURED." That's code for "tastes like shit and makes you sick."

Isopropanol is relatively safe to drink in small amounts (single digit mL). It's only about 2x stronger than ethanol, and your liver metabolizes it to acetone, which is safe.

Denatured alcohol contains methanol, which is way more dangerous since you metabolise it to formaldehyde.

Source: I unknowingly got drunk on IPA fumes before work one time and wrote some really bad code

Methanol is indeed quite toxic but it is not the only denaturant. There are many others [0]. When methanol is used as a denaturant, special labeling is required [1]. Most of the denatured ethyl alcohol I've seen in pharmacies in recent years has not contained methanol but merely bittering agents, because methanol is so dangerous.

[0] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2003-title27-vol1/xm...

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2016-20712/p-284

Well, if the stated goal was to kill brain cells, I'm sure either will get you there
Your pale ale clearly isn't strong enough!
I second that. I discovered that IPA dissolves sharpie resin when doing DIY circuitboards via toner transfer. When you do toner transfer, you can use a Sharpie to fix up imperfections in the artwork before doing the etching. After the copper is etched, you remove the ink.

The first time I did that, I tried IPA first, and that took off the Sharpie touch ups, not doing anything to the laser printer toner.

Next up, acetone: swoosh, clean copper in one wipe.

I use hand sanitizer, so an alcoholic beverage might work, although it's significantly diluted.