suggestions for cleaning white plastic?

[gumbyandpals]

I don't know why some companies (ahem, Nintendo) decide to make things that you hold in your dirt-collecting, oil secreting hands out of white plastic, but they do.

So, that nice bright looking white plastic eventually gets dirty. It seems like it almost becomes ingrained in the plastic. Any suggestions for cleaning it? So far all I've tried is scrubbing the hell out of it with alcohol and it helps some but it could be better.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Well, most plastic has a certain level of porousness, so the dirt does in fact "stain" the plastic.

There are several different "plastic cleaners/polishes" on the market ... whether or not they'll get the dirt out of porous white plastic - I can't guarantee, but they make the claim, so they may be worth a try.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=plastic+cleaner

[Xian042]

You may be talking about the Yellowing effect of the type of plastic used in some early nintendo consoles and cart casings. You can't wash it off, its not dirt, its discoloration.

I'm sure another poster will provide a link with more detailed info.

[Xian042]

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/1/13/6609

[gumbyandpals]

Yeah, I'm familiar with the yellowing of plastic (I've got an snes like that) as it ages, however, I know this is just dirty plastic.

[alxbly]

My white DS Lite suffers from this. Despite being very particular about having clean hands whenever I play any games console or handheld, the DS discolored very quickly (about four months after I'd bought it). You can see the discoloration in this photo and it's most obvious around the D-pad:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y70/alxbly/DS/DSdiscolor01.jpg

Good luck, I hope you find an answer to this problem. I was recommended to try surgical spirit (I think it gets called rubbing alcohol in the US) but it was only effective at removing the shine from the small patch of DS plastic where I tried it out.

[Mike01Hawk]

What about one of those "Magic Erasers"?