Remove expansion foam from clothes

Question

As an occasional user of expansion foam, I know that it gets on my clothing quite often. When removed ASAP it does not really leave a mark, but if you wait for a bit it can stain your clothes, and become really hard to remove (sticky).

How can you easily remove expansion foam from your clothing ?

Things I tried so far:

• Cleaning materials provided at the do-it-yourself store.

  There would either leave stains or not remove it at all

• Acid based cleaning materials from the local supermarket.

  They would remove the foam, but damage the colors of the clothing

Answer 1

The only quick way to get dried expansion foam off your clothes is to use solvents, but they can damage your clothes and make the problem worse by damaging the fibers and discoloring the fabric.

You could try freezing it and then chipping/scraping it off. I've had some success with that method in the past depending on the fabric. The best you get with that method is the surface clean but it does leave it still within the fabric.

There will likely be some discoloration from the solvents in the foam even if you do get it off, so whether it's worth a lot of effort depends. Prevention in this case is the only cure - I keep a set of old clothes for those rare occasions I work with the stuff.