How to Remove Highlighter Ink From Books and Paper

I took a class recently where books were automatically shipped to us from the bookstore.  Unfortunately, mine came with TONS of highlighting and other types of marks everywhere.  If you're like me, this is sooo annoying.  Like seriously?!  Do you really have to highlight everything?  What's the point in highlighting if you're highlighting everything?  I managed to cope with it throughout the class, but then it came time to sell back my books.  

The book buy back policy states that the bookstore won't accept a book with too excessive highlighting.  Even though it sent the book to me this way (and I didn't add a single new mark to it), I doubted that they would consider it in good condition.  There must be a way to remove the highlighting, I thought.  I searched online and couldn't find anything other than the fact that Pilot now sells Frixion Erasable Highlighter Pens now.  I wished that previous owner of this book had known that.  If you plan on highlighting in a book, please use erasable highlighters and pens.  Other brands, such as Kuretake, even sell erasable felt tip and rollerball pens now, and most brands come with plenty of color options, so there's no excuse for not using one.  These ink erasers that come with the pens only work on the ink for that specific pen.  And please remember, pencils are just as effective as highlighters and are cheap and easy to erase.

Without any luck finding anything that actually removes any kind of highlighter, I began to brainstorm and experiment.  Hydrogen peroxide does not work.  Bleach is too harsh, though a diluted solution does work if you're that desperate.  I found out that lemon juice works surprisingly well on yellow highlighting ink, but not on other colors of highlighting or inks.  It virtually removes all of it, except for a super light blue-ish yellow tint.  I used it on a textbook with a semi-gloss paper, so I am not sure how it will work with cheaper matte paper usually used in paperback books.

Method

1. Pour a little lemon juice into a small bowl or cup.  I used a lemon blend and not pure lemon juice, and it still worked.  When you pour the juice in a container, you can control the amount of lemon juice you apply.
2. Have an electric or hand-operated fan ready to help it dry faster.  The faster it dries, the less wrinkling of the paper.  I just had a ceiling fan on, and it dried fairly quickly.
3. Take a Q-tip cotton swab and dip the tip of it only into the lemon juice.  If you dip it straight into the lemon juice container, you might get too much juice, which will soak through and wrinkle the paper.  You don't need a lot of juice for it to work, but you do need to reapply often to keep the tip somewhat moist.
4. Do a test on the inside margin of where the highlight is.  The inside margin is a better test spot because most people usually notice the right-side margin instead.  Just lightly run the tip over the ink.  If there's no significant damage to the paper, then continue lightly swabbing in horizontal lines following the direction of the markings until the color almost disappears.
5. When you are done swabbing two side-by-side pages, leave them open for 1-2 minutes to allow them to dry before you proceed to the next pages

Even if you cannot get all of the marks out, reducing the appearance of the yellow highlighting can greatly increase your chances of a better sell back.

If any publishers are reading this, a really great idea is to make books that have a light powder or waxy coating on the pages to allow markings of any kind to be easily removed.  Waxed printing paper already exists, but you don't need that much of a waxy coating for it to be effective still.  It would be similar to how scratch and sniff coated paper feels.  If you want to try my idea,  please let me know (and I want a small cut of any profits! :)

I plan to try Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser next, since it pretty much works on almost anything.  Other things I will try soon:

• Hair dye color remover (aka "uncolor")
• Pet stain enzymatic remover
• Non-acetone nail polish remover
• Other types of light colored fruit juices (e.g., grapefruit, pineapple)

If anyone else has had any luck with other substances, please let me know!  If this worked for you, let me know as well and what you used it on.