Yes, Paintball stains do wash out and No it doesn’t Stain.
In this article, I would like to answer this question in a more detailed manner and give you some simple tips from my own research and personal experience on how to wash paintball stains out. Also, I give my recommendations on the best paintballs and where you can buy them.
Let us jump into it.
Do Paintball Stains Washout from Clothes?
Yes, Paintball stains do wash out.
Paintball pellets are not made of regular paint which is a pain in the butt to wash out, instead, the bright colors in the paintball pellets are a mixture of water-soluble nontoxic dye.
This means that they paint/dye in the paintball pellets will dissolve in water and not stick to the fabric, making them very easy to wash off.
This fear that a lot of parents have that the paintballs won’t wash off easy can be understood since normal paint is tough to wash out, usually, you need something like kerosene to dissolve normal paint.
Most pellets are also non-toxic, unlike normal paint which makes them safe for individuals.
Lucky for us paintball companies thought ahead and made their products laundry and health friendly.
What Is a Paintball Pellet Made of?
For all those chemistry fans out there paintball pellets are made of propylene glycol -the main ingredient), sorbitol, dye, and in some cases wax.
I am not a chemist though from what I understand the thing that you need to avoid is a high amount of wax in your paintball pellets. These paintballs dry pretty fast and feel like how candle wax feels after it dries.
It is the wax that sticks on to your clothes and makes it tough to clean out, imagine candle wax and you can see why.
If by some unlucky chance you find yourself dealing with paintball stains form paintball pellets with a high wax ratio. What you need to do is soak the paintball clothes in warm to moderately hot water to get the stain out. This softens or melt the wax and allows it to come off more easily
I am gonna leave my recommendation for the best Paintball Pellets at the end of the article.
Can I wash Paintball clothes with Other Clothes?
I wouldn’t advise washing paintball clothes with other normal clothes, because even though paintballs pellets don’t permanently stain its best practice to avoid mixing it with other clothes.
How to wash Paintball Clothes?
Paintball clothes should be washed separately from normal everyday clothes. You can still use normal detergents and the same wash cycle on your washing machine.
The only difference that my wife does is that she soaks our kids’ paintball clothes out a bit and then drains away from the colorful water.
Tips on How to Get Paintball Paint Out of your clothes
Even though paintballs don’t permanently stain these are some simple tips to help to make washing paintball clothes easier.
- Have designated paintball clothes for your kids.
Why, because after a while of constantly getting paintball stains it is gonna leave subtle marks on the fabric. Plus if your kids are using compressed air paintball guns they shoot paintball with a reasonable amount of force that can damage clothes.
- Dark colors are the best-designated paintball clothes.
In my experience, dark colors don’t look too bad when they are stained. Imagine seeing someone with a white shirt on with tons of paintball stains and compare it to someone with dark green.
- Wash clothes as soon as kids are finished playing paintball.
This prevents paintball stains from soaking in and making it tougher to get out.
- Allow clothes to soak first
This allows paintball dyes to dissolve in the water. What my wife usually does is that she soaks our kids paintball clothes with detergent, then she would drain away that water, only then would she wash them out as normal. This not only removes the dye but also gets rid of dirt, leaves and any foreign matter from damaging the washing machine.
- I spoke of this before but it is worth mentioning again if you are dealing with tough paintball stains probably because of lots of wax try soaking the paintball clothes in hot water to soften the wax.
If your curious to know how paintball is made you can check out the video below
Best Paintball Pellets
There are two types of paintball guns see my article Best Paintball Guns for kids to understand more, each type of paintball gun uses a different size or caliber of paintball.
I recommend JT Splatmaster .50 Cal Biodegradable Non-Toxic Paintball Pellet.
Click to see the current price on Amazon for .50 cal size paintball pellets.
For .68 cal Paintball Pellets which is the standard Paintball Pellets I recommend Valken Infinity Paintballs, .68 Caliber click to see the Current Price on Amazon
Both of these Paintball Pellets are nontoxic and have low wax content making them easy to clean.
I hope this article you found this article helpful in Answering the Question; Does Paintball stain and how to wash Paintball stains out?
To understand more about Paintball for kids you can read my article on Paintball for kids.
