How To Remove Sublimation Ink! Don't Throw Your Mugs AWAY! 

You can resublimate. Put the mug in a convection oven at 400 degrees for an hour that will fade the image, the resublimate again but this time use a complicated, preferably dark pattern (kind of like when you get a coverup tattoo). I've saved many mugs and tumblers this way.

The scourer and pressure you used is what took the coating off, we use them in car paint shops to scuff up paint on a car that’s getting a paint job done 😊

I want to say thank you. I didn’t need to remove my image I just needed to take off some ghosting and I used white vinegar on a makeup sponge and then used the sponge 🧽 to scrub it. It came off amazingly and save my mug.

I am very new to this and this was one of my first worries. I do believe in being able to use resources efficiently and you taught me something really valuable. Thank you very much!!!!

Not only have you probably scrubbed off the sublimation coating, but you have now embedded micro scratches all over the mug so whatever design goes on next, longevity will be an issue. Also, I buy mugs for well under a dollar, so it’s cheaper and less time consuming to just use a new mug! Great video anyhow, this is how we all learn!

I could have saved like 20 mugs last month if I knew this!!!! Thank you

I put a commercial Sublimation solution on a Dollar Tree ceramic mug. When I sublimated on the mug, the image came out great except that I didn't have the wrap tight enough and the mug didn't cover evenly. I viewed several videos on how to remove the sub ink from the mug including the vinegar, heat and paint thinner methods. However, I found, at least in my case, that simply using nail polish remover does the trick. I put a small amount of nail polish remover on a paper towel and rubbed it on the mug. It took a few paper towels, but the sublimation came right off without scrubbing. I'll have to put the sublimation solution on the mug again, since I believe I also removed that with the nail polish remover. However, I was able to remove all of the ink and am starting with a completely blank coffee mug without any sign of the original image. Just thought I'd send this along and see if you might want to try this method.

If you have a lot of messed up mugs like myself 😅 you could probably get away with soaking paper towels in vinegar then wrapping it on the mug and securing with foil or Saran Wrap. So you can do more at a time as well as possibly accelerate the cleaning action. Also I have the sublimation glaze and I don’t care for it, too much work to apply and it flaked off easily, I decided my sanity was of more value lol.

The scotch brite pad most likely scrubbed off the polyester coating that accepts the dye.

Thank you for sharing this. I have a mug I tossed just this week and almost held onto it thinking maybe it could be removed. But watching your video as you were scrubbing it, I wondered if that (or the vinegar) would remove the coating that allows the sublimation. Now we know! But at least you can use for water slide. And your son is adorable, loved the commentary on the smell! :-)

There is a coating on the mugs for Sublimating in to adhere to. I'm guessing the coating got stripped off when cleaned and the ink no longer sticks to the mug. Great Video.. now we know.. Thanks.

Thx for showing us all cuz I messed up the same way last night and now Ik its my cup for home use

Sad 3 mugs were messed up. Very grateful you showed us how to remove the sublimation after messed up though. Thank you for always teaching. hello to your son too.

Omgoodness those mugs are beautiful 🥰 vibrant colors 💕

I could listen to y’all say vinegar all day! So cute. ❣️

Hey Katrina, great video for educational purposes. Now we know the outcome of this process. But you know you can bake it off in the amount of time it took ti soak it. Then you can rebate them. Thanks for the great content you provide

Thankyou, I have sublimation ink on my pvc table cloth, will try soaking it in white vinegar 😊

Thank you for doing this!!! I have a few tumblers over been holding onto in hopes that I can salvage them

Maybe you shouldn’t scrub and just let it sit longer and see if it keeps the protection on the mugs? Just a thought

I had to subscribe. I'm sitting here saying if that mug accepts a sublimation image after all that scrubbing and scraping, with vinegar....Imma need to know that mug brand! Great vid!

Thank you very much for sharing this and for answering the question I was thinking about regarding removing and resublimating a messed up mug; if it was possible.

Hi, this method is great and, i suggest you to apply sublimation coating liquid on mugs and heat up the mugs and then you can reprint on them

Wow!!! It was amazing simply!! I liked it. Thanks. I do sublimations and at times I make mistakes in my sublimations 😳 but now I have as fix it 😊 Thanks again! Go on!! Great job

Those are absolutely beautiful!! I love your videos as they are so informative and helpful. Thank you.

those mugs are BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

Oh wow, the vinegar worked! At least I can still reuse the mug. Thanks for this.

Awesome video Queen. THANK YOU ❤️! I am going to do my 2 mugs I have been holding on to now. Look forward to another great video. God bless 🙌🏽

Thanks for showing that for the benefit of all of us 👍👍

Thanks for sharing. That's really great to know that vinegar can remove the images. I wonder if this would work on tumblers. I have so many tumblers that I jacked up. I'll be trying this method on them. Thanks again!

Thank you. I got a few messed up cups that that are sitting cause I couldn’t sell them....Thanks for the magic

Thank you for the tutorial. Good to know.

I wonder if heating the vinegar will help. Maybe doing a double boiler method, but not actually boiling it

oh my goodness, those mugs are super cute!!! Can you do a video on how you created that image to sublimate?

I have bake then in the oven to remove image and it faded the image a lot but not all the way so I redid it in a darker image and it worked

Thanks for this info. Im a beginner and need hope for possible messups .

This is good to know. Thanks for the video Sistergreek! I use A-Sub paper too. Love it.

Did you think about recoating it with sublimation coating I'm going to try it. I have 2 mugs I messed up. Will let you know. Thanks for the information 🙂

I just used Lacquer thinner and its heaven.

Wow. That is amazing. Thank-you!

Thank you so much! For letting us know. Have a bless day!

Also, have you tried Poly Gloss? If someone was dead set on sublimating, they could just recoat the mug with a sublimation base coat, correct? I didn't know if you had tried that at all...

Thank you for doing this video and sharing your results

Thanks for this valuable info. !! 👏🏾👍🏾 I have some messed up mugs that I can do this to.

Those mugs are cute. Love the bling

Say hi to your son for me too😃. That was a very good answer to the question for me that has not come up yet. But now I know the answer when it does thanks to you. Thanks again for caring and for sharing. Oops it end up sounding like AA meeting 😄👍

Eu gosto de experiências assim. Trás muito aprendizado. Muito obrigada por compartilhar!!! 🇧🇷❤️

I love your accent - I could listen to you forever lol. New York?

This was very informative. Thank you so much!!

You can put it in a convection oven at 400 and hour and it will lighten enough to put a dark picture on it. It does work and doesn't take the coating off

Try baking it uncovered to lighten up the image and resub with a dark busier image that’s what I do to my sub tumblers it works perfect. I bake for an hr

You have to add poly gloss sublimation to recoat the glass dye press sells it!

I think it will work if you added the sublimation coating after removing the initial design.

Great video, and good information. It sucks that it removes the sublimation coating by scrubbing. I was able to sublimate on some stainless tumblers using 2 coats of a clear gloss polyurethane spray. It should work just fine on anything, including mugs, just make sure the poly is cured first. And I would definitely test on some trash mugs prior to doing on $$ mugs.

I had thrown out so many wine tumblers. I don’t like headaches and just throw away, but I’ll try it. Safe my money. Love ur images with the blue and orange. Where can I buy the image at. Thanks.

Thank you for doing this video! We all needed to know. But really wanted to tell you that there’s a company advertising a sublimation removal product on Facebook and using parts of your video in their ad! I couldn’t get the name or a screenshot because it disappeared when I went back to get it.

I burn m tumblers with a commercial heat gun. This is a game changer if it looks better than burning

Acetone (from a beauty supply stone) should take that off much faster; in minutes with no soaking.

What????!!!!!????? I NEVER KNEW THIS!!!!! I HAVE THROWN OUT SO MANY MUGS!!!!

Very thorough and helpful video! Thank you for doing that.

Maybe you should use poly gloss after the scrub then reprint

Thanks for the info - good to know...p.s. omg those mugs are beautiful!

Good video thanks I would have trashed the mug or give it to the customer if local ❤

Thannnnk youuu sooo much this is a life saver

Hi, I did try the one with the white vinegar, it did work but it took some time and elbow grease, instead of the green scrubber I rinsed of the SOS pad and it worked well

Thank you showing this. Great to know this.

Sue Wolfe- Did you try fingernail polish remover? It's a solvent and should take it off. ❤

Does this work with sublimated tumblers? I have a white line down the middle of mine

Love the bling on your cups where did you purchase the rhinestones please?

Maybe it’s just the method. I’ve watched a bake tutorial. The image didn’t come off completely but did get lighter. He re-sub with darker images & they turned out perfect

Can you do this also to a 20oz tumbler?

That's great! I have a couple mugs I messed up on and wondered if this could be done. Now I know. Thank you so much for this. Now i'm wondering if you can buy that spray can sublimation stuff and use it on mugs. Hmm! Oh and say Hey to your son from up north Michigan! Be groovy darlin! Hugs to all!

Wonder if hydrogen peroxide and a UV light would take it off. With out hurting the mug coating probably take longer. But worth a shot

❤This video is great. Thank you so much for posting it. ❤

Try baking the cup in the over for 30minutes. @ 375F

Hiya, I loved the image that you put on your mugs, I'd love to see a video of you attaching all the pearls x Can you tell me how you find the difference between the water slide and the sublimation, I tried the water slide first but it came off really quickly, so I bought all the sublimation stuff which I love. How did you get on with the water slide?

Hello Katrina. Please if you can help. So i am doing sublimation. I have a problem with black color. My printer is Epson (not so important which model), and i bought it recently, so it is a new printer and already problem started. The problem was also on old printer before. Sometimes i print many pages and everything is clear on paper. But meanwhile after some amount of prints, the paper have tiny tiny black dots. Those dots are so small that you can see them on the paper very hard. So i am always checking before sublimation, immediately when print is done. Sometimes if i don't see that there are dots, on a mug is really a big mess, not nice to see. Sometimes a little more, sometimes not so much. And then i need to do a Head Cleaning. And when it is done, everything is ok and clear for some followings prints. And then again, dots appears again. So i know it is not good to do Head Cleaning so often, so i try to find a solution. I think that there is a problem with a color? Maybe i should try to buy another color? Because printer is new, so printer can't be problem, at least i think so. Also not sure that paper is problem. And what is interesting, dots are always black, never other color. I am doing everything in photoshop, i know that there are many option, i tried that also, but then is problem with color od design etc. Please if you have have some thoughts, everything can help. Sorry for english and so much texts.

Can this be done on Tumblers as well?

I I cannot get my measurements right for my tumblers I sat it on the program Canva and when I print it it comes out a different size can you please tell me what I’m doing wrong

I wonder if citri strip would work?

Could it be due to the scrubbing and not necessarily the vinegar?

Have u tried this with tumbler because i tried it today and had no luck

Can I just say I love how you pronounce “vinegar”

will that work on any cups like 20 oz tumbler

I have 4 messed up Thank you do much.

I think if you buy the Stainless Steel scrubby HAS to say stainless steel as it will not cut deep I bet it will be easier. I use them for EVerything doesn't not scratch the surface.

I have to say I did re-do a mug without stripping the original image but it was the exact same image i did over the top without issue got better colouring etc so that can work no saying it will work every time... also tried different image over a already subbed mug def did not work original image showed through...

hello I'm trying to find out what kind of printer do I need to buy and what kind of ink for coffee cups can you help me please ,and what kind of price price range we talkin about.

Can we re-use the same mug for sublimation after removing the old image from it ?

Very useful video. Thanks

And he is so cute!

I think probably you can’t re-sublimate is because sublimation works by the sublimation ink adhering to polyester. Scrubbing the ink off scrubbed the polyester coating on the mug off which would explain why only the parts that were not scrubbed the image appears on the second sublimation. I’ve heard of polyester powder and coating to assist in sublimation. Perhaps if you applied that after you scrubbed the ink off you would be able to sublimate again. Have you tried that? Maybe you could really save your mugs with that method. I’d be interested to see that video.

Walmart Tomorrow for the gallon thanks sis

Will this work with tumblers?

Thanks so much for sharing this information! Love your mugs, amazing bling, they’re gorgeous!!!

You can sublimated it on the other side and offer it for the left handed or right handed, which ever is benefit from. I'm thinking about your son because his funny and cute.

Love it thanks for the video question you said you would waterslide on mug when you waterslide then how do you seal?

Do you think this is possible on tumblers

Woah! That's so cool!

What size mugs do you prefer and size image do you use

That white vinegar was a bomb how it worked but I would surely still use the cup for a vinyl project for self... beautiful cups!