Perhaps the earliest time I was impressed by my mother was when I asked her,
"What soap I should use to wash silk? I ran out of Woolite." She began a series of rhetorical questions: how delicate is silk? What part of the human body gets washed that is closest to silk? What do you use to wash it?
The answers: quite delicate, hair, and shampoo. The solution worked, but more importantly, the process opened up the possibilities of using real life analogues to solve seemingly unrelated problems.
A few years ago, I discovered one that seems to work. I had to clean a brush that I used to apply an oil-based paint. For environmental, health and a host of other reasons, I have become loathe to use acetone or other solvents to clean the brush. So I asked myself, "How would my mother solve this problem? What is oil-based paint based on? Is there an product that could mix well with oil-based paint but would be affected by ordinary soap?
The answer, vegetable-based oils. Corn oil, olive oil, safflower oil, organic or not, it will mix with oil paint, then enable that vegetable oil-thinned oil-based paint to be washed off using dish soap and warm water. Amazingly, it also works with adhesives applied like labels on glasses, ceramics, plastics and any other hard, dense substrate, or motor oil on hands, etc. etc.
The basic technique:
1. Pour a little oil (a couple teaspoons to start) on the offending item and rub until a "thinning" effect is felt/observed.
2. Apply full-strength liquid dish soap to the area and rub.
3. Rinse with warm water.
4. Repeat if necessary.
Try it. Let me know how it works.
