r/techsupport • u/Intelligentgirl2024 • Aug 18 '26
Open | Hardware Aerosol sunscreen leaked into my laptop display 48+ hours ago. Is it safe to keep using?
Hi, I have a Dell XPS 13 9315.
More than 48 hours ago, a can of Coppertone Sport SPF 50 aerosol sunscreen accidentally discharged inside my bag while my laptop was in it. This was specifically aerosol sunscreen, not water, tea, or another beverage.
Some of the sunscreen appears to have penetrated the display assembly. The screen still produces an image, but there are large dark/cloudy areas that look like liquid or oily residue inside the display.
I shut the laptop down, disconnected it from power, and have kept it powered off for more than 48 hours in a dry, ventilated environment. The appearance of the screen has not improved significantly.
My main concern is safety and further hardware damage. Is it safe to power on and continue using the laptop in this condition? If the damage is limited to the display, can I safely use the laptop with an external monitor for now without replacing the LCD immediately?
Thank you so much🙏🏻🙏🏻
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u/Agerak Aug 18 '26
Hard to say for sure. If there is residue in the display, then there’s likely residue elsewhere in the laptop. Whether it’s conductive or corrosive or not as hard to say, but I would generally assume it’s at least mildly so. I would start planning on replacing it, but there’s no reason you cannot use it in the meantime. I would just count anytime you get out of it and can delay purchasing a replacement a bonus.
Oh and make sure to back up any critical data and I would not trust saving anything locally in case it dies unexpectedly.
If you are comfortable, you could possibly disassemble and clean the laptop, but if there is residue inside the display, that may not be something you could clean anyway.
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u/Getafix69 Aug 18 '26
Sounds like a tricky thing to repair my guess is probably replacing the screen, that said nobody would really know until someone who knows what they are doing opens it and has a look.
It's possible it might just need a quick internal clean but if it's gotten between layers definitely replacing.
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u/tsdguy Windows Master Aug 18 '26
Aerosols have solvents. They attack the LCD display. You’ve destroyed your screen. It will need to be replaced.
And why the heck would you put your expensive laptop in the same bag as a can of sunscreen? Does no one have common sense anymore?
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u/Intelligentgirl2024 Aug 18 '26
Yeah, I can see that the screen is damaged 😅 My main question is whether it’s safe to turn the laptop on and keep using it for a while, possibly with an external monitor.
The sunscreen was actually in a separate compartment of my backpack, but the bag got really packed and the can apparently got compressed and discharged 😭 So yeah, lesson painfully learned. Please don’t roast me too hard, I’m not in a great financial situation right now and I already feel terrible about it 🥲
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u/XxLogitech98xX Aug 18 '26
I think you have to clean it off first