I tried Simple Green cleaner yesterday and it is FANTASTIC!!! ... Best way to go folks, easpecially if you have pets that may know it down accidentally.
In fact, you can bathe your pets in simple green. =)
...well, not soak them like a miniature, but diluted a bit and sponge them clean! I've cleaned my cats with it before. hehe.
Its a very, very mild cleaning solution. Non-toxic, biodegradable, etc. Wash it down the sink, flush it down the toilet, whatever. You sure aren't going to be disposing of brake fluid or some of the other chemicals like that. It doesn't break down the paint like other chemicals, I think it just weakens the paint's ability to stick so it just comes off.
I stripped a lot of my oldest figures with it to repaint them. I put a few figures in a small plastic container and poured in the simple green until they were all covered then just left it for a day or so. I wasn't in any rush to work on them so just left them. Scrubbed them a little with an old toothbrush, rinsed them really well, scrubbed and rinsed again to make sure the simple green was gone (remember, it tries to make paint not stick.. not good to paint over!) and let them dry. Afterwards, I grabbed some toothpicks and scraped the paint bits out of the little cracks and corners that the brush had trouble reaching.
Maybe it takes a bit more effort than a more aggressive chem that eats away the paint, but you don't need to worry about the stuff at all... get it on your clothes, hands, whatever... won't hurt it. Doubt you'd want to drink it or get it in your eyes any more than you'd want to do with shampoo or dishsoap, but its pretty much just as harmless. Actually, the most "damage" I did was not watching where the bits of paint comming off the first figure where going. After I noticed little paint bits all over my sink, I put the stopper in and scrubbed the figs while they were submerged so I wouldn't make a mess I'd need to clean up.