How to Remove Gum from a T-Shirt with Goo Gone

If you’ve had a recent misfortune with gum and your clothes, here’s how to remove gum from a shirt.

My husband hates chewing gum because people are irresponsible with it, sticking it or spitting it wherever they please, leaving unsuspecting, innocent people to come across something that was masticated in someone else’s mouth, for who knows how long, with who knows what kind of germs or bacteria attached to it. It gets stuck on the bottom of your shoes far too often, and sometimes stuck other places too, like on your clothes.

Our son Michael got it stuck on the back of his shirt and on his car seat then because we didn’t know what to do about it before we got home.
I looked up a few ideas, and decided to try Goo Gone to get gum off shirt.

By the time I finally got around to remove gum from his T-shirt, it had sat around for a few months… So the following tutorials works on dried old stuck on gum from clothes too!

There are numerous ways to remove gum from clothes, like freezing it, boiling it in water, and more. But, if you happen to have some Goo Gone around, this works well too.

How to Remove Gum from Clothes

What You’ll Need

Shirt with gum stuck on it
Goo Gone
Cotton Balls
Butter Knife
Toothbrush
Dish Soap or Liquid Laundry Detergent

Instructions

1. Dab a small amount of Goo Gone onto a cotton ball.

2. Gently rub the cotton ball onto the gum.

3. Let sit for 30 seconds.

4. Take a butter knife and gently scrape off the gum.5. Use a toothbrush to remove any remaining gum.

6. Scrub the area with some mild dish soap or liquid laundry detergent and water to remove the excess oil from the Goo Gone.

7. Rinse.

8. Launder normally.

I may not have done steps 6 and 7 above first, and there was a slight oily residue from the Goo Gone (and possibly the gum itself) on his shirt. It has since come out after treating it and washing it a few more times, so don’t make my mistake if you use Goo Gone to remove gum from clothes!

Here’s what the shirt looks like now! I’m so glad we figured it out. It was (and is again) one of my son’s favorite shirts to wear! Now if only I could convince him not to stretch out the neck all the time…