Ah, yes. But she had the creepy Joker smile going on, only in blue. I guess she drank some of the stuff, too.
I just found a huge wad of paper towels with little blue and green handprints shoved behind the refrigerator. Apparently, she tried to clean herself up and hide the evidence before I found her!
Now, see, WhyNot, you’re taking the completely wrong approach. What you should be doing is getting a couple crates of said food coloring. Then, the two of you can experiment until the correct chromatic schema are achieved.
I don’t have any suggestions for you but I wanted you to know you are not alone. I went upstairs one day to find my open briefcase on my bedroom floor. My kids (at the time 2, 2 and 3 years old) had gotten into my sharpy markers, my permanent sharpy markers, and spent 10/15 min coloring all over each other and the dog.
Unwanted colors on kids will come out.
Not any time soon.
These are the times we look back on and smile at.
WhyNot, my husband suggests mineral spirits. Works well with wood stain, so he thought it might work for your situation.
This sounds so much like something my daughter would do that I’m going to go make sure all my food coloring is hidden away right now!
Yes, but they’ll need to lay down a good coat of primer first.
Seriously though, I’d make her live with it. All of these chemicals seem like bad news to a kid of three years. It wears off.
It might be a bad idea to use mineral spirit/white spirit on a small child.
I would worry about absorption through the skin and inhalation, and in a small child it might not take a very large dose (absorbed or inhaled) to bring on symptoms.
You can also get it in a handy pump bottle. Wonderful stuff for children…teaches them a right lesson, too, about getting so dirty plain soap won’t cut it. 
Uh…about the mineral spirits? Never mind.
(Thanks,Szlater!)
I have no idea how she found mine, or why on earth she thought it was something to eat! I mean, sure, it was in the pantry on a low-ish shelf, but it was behind about 5 years worth of baking supplies! Yet it somehow took her the length of time I was in the bathroom to dig it out and go all performance art on me.
I tossed the whole thing, after trying to figure out how much she drank. I figure if I’m using it only twice a decade, I can afford the $3 for another box in 2012. Plus, it was all messy and stuff.
When I was a tiny lass, I pulled a similar stunt with red food coloring. I remember my mom washing me again and again with Pond’s cold cream. I think I ended up being a rosy shade of pink. Alas, no pics remain of this. When I was little, all our photos were black and white. I feel really old now! Anyhow, they still make this stuff, and it is reasonably gentle and may help lighten up the color some.
http://www.drugstore.com/qxp17105_334918_sespider/ponds/cold_cream_cleanser.htm
This thread reminds me of this great photo. I don’t know who these kids are, but I saw this pic all over the net a couple of years ago, and the search term “markers and kids” brought it right up.
http://www.lukekuepfer.com/Resources/Don’t%20Give%20Your%20Kids%20Magic%20Markers%20For%20Christmas.jpg
Is there a problem here in need of a worse solution?
A three-year old kid. Sensitive skin. It will wear off in time, probably sooner than you think. In really blunt terms, is her appearance bad for her, or the opinions of other may make of her (or you) while in public? Any treatment by Lava soap or harsh chemicals may have disfiguring or other health consequence long past the few laughs and embarrassment.
Enjoy it while it lasts. No harm. No foul. Down the road you will have other issues with her that won’t be funny and place her at risk. This is nothing.
If you find others stare at her, just tell them it’s bird flu.
Nah. Frankly I was too queasy today to worry about it, and it looks like her bath tonight took off the rest of it. The in-law trip got postponed to tomorrow 'cause of my illness, so it looks like a happy ending, all 'round.
So thank you all for your suggestions. Happily, we didn’t need to nuke her from orbit or trade her in for a newer model. 
Pressure washer?
Just kidding. It worked great on my deck.
I’m thinkin’ it’ll wear off and Gramma will have something to chuckle about.
Oh, I’m sure Gramma has stories to tell about when her son was younger too, if you ask her.
I’m with the majority here…
Removing the stain will be difficult anyway, and even if you try, it’ll involve noxious chemicals and a lot of elbow grease. That will be fun for neither party involved in the process.
Unless your loveable young urchin has a job interview or a meeting with the board of directors coming up in the next little while, just leave the stain there for smiles and memories. It’ll come out eventually - and three year-old human beings aren’t exactly the most neatly presented of critters at the best of times.
And yes, photos please.
I agree that it will wear off in time. You might increase the soak time and frequency of baths, you’re basically trying to slough off dead skin at this point.
Not to throw a wet blanket on things, but now might be a good time to review your low-shelf/ unsecured storage for other temptations. Some spices and other seemingly non-dangerous stuff is potentially very bad for kids – particularly one who is (apparently) quick and known to hide the evidence.
It would be a shame to go from ‘my tummy hurts’ to something serious, then find an empty nutmeg container behind the fridge much later. Again, I’m not implying you were neglectful, or a ‘bad parent’ for having food coloring available to a curious child. I’m just pointing out that a more thorough review might be in order.
And get that camera fixed! Your kid could be famous by now.
BTW acetone is great for removing Sharpie ink.
My oldest son had a food coloring incident, when he was 4, and he was green. His preschool teacher called to ask me why he was green.
I had some astringent (like Sea Breeze, or the Neutrogena kind), and that helped quite a bit. He was at least a much lighter shade of green after I used that on him.
I’ve since discovered that some brands of baby wipes are effective at removing food coloring from babies. Huggies and the Costco brand, in particular. We have this issue every year around Easter. I turn my back, and I have three multi-colored boys and a rainbow kitchen.
I set my (then) three year old up on the porch with coloured water in her tea set so I could get on with the gardening. My parents came around to visit and the first I knew of what had happened was their laughter. Rainbow girl!
I was also the only parent at Playcentre who could make **indelible **‘slime’ (sort of shaving cream finger paint) - I wasn’t asked to make it twice, it took an average of four days to fade.
If you’ve got a bath, when your kid has finished and is wrapped snugly in their towel, drop food colouring one drop at a time into the water before you pull the plug, it’s neat watching the colours make fantastic shapes in the water and then merge from primaries into secondary colours (great for teaching colour mixes). Then, when you’re done, all the colours swirl into an effective demonstration of the corialis effect!
What’s a few stains? They prove the kid’s having fun.
I know your problem has been solved but MissGypsy had the solution.
I’m a kindergarten teacher and I have an unwanted talent for turning small people blue. We frequently use a dye (powdered) that is much stronger the food colouring.
When my “talent” first became obvious some fairly harsh methods of removal were tried (though honestly some of the methods above make me know you people are cleaning your own children not other peoples!) but the safest, kindest, gentlest method proved to be the most effective!
Baby wipes are brilliant on dye. It may take several but I guarantee they work better the the chemical warfare that has been suggested. I have no idea what they put in baby wipes but they remove all but the strongest blue.
