Household Items to Help You Remove Sticker Residue Off Glass

Jul 21, 2023

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Hint: peanut butter works magic.

You bring home a vase from the flea market or have scored the perfect glassware for your table decor, but there are price stickers stuck to the glass. Or, maybe your kid went crazy with stickers and made a collage on your glass-top dining table. Now you’re left wondering how to remove sticker residue.

Products like Goo Gone can help break down the adhesive. But you might be surprised to learn that a few items you already have around the house (like peanut butter or a hair dryer!) can also help you get sticker residue off glass.

The main mistake people make when trying to remove stickers from glass is using excessive pressure, says Jeramy Sibley, President of Glass Doctor, a Neighborly company. Unfortunately, going overboard with elbow grease or using a metal scraper could scratch your glass permanently. Instead, try something gentler to help you remove the adhesive, like a plastic scraper or a credit card, Sibley suggests.

But first, you’ll need to loosen up the adhesive. You can start off by trying to remove a sticker from glass by using your nails to lift up as much of the sticker’s edges as you can, rubbing your finger across it to form little balls that you can pluck off, Sibley says.

But for extra-sticky stickers, here are a few more methods for removing the residue from glass, according to Sibley.

Take a washcloth that’s soaked with warm water and a bit of dish soap and lay it over the sticker for 5 to 10 minutes. You want to get the sticker damp so that the heat of the water with the soap can break down the glue. From there, you should be able to pull the adhesive away cleanly with your hands or by using a credit card or a plastic scraper.

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Surprisingly, creamy peanut butter can be applied to help loosen the adhesive. Just spread a little bit of peanut butter over the label and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes as the oils soften the residue. Use a paper towel soaked in warm, soapy water to remove the peanut butter and a plastic scraper to help detach the sticker from the glass surface.

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Soak a paper towel in cooking oil or white vinegar and then place it over the sticker for about 5 to 10 minutes to soften the glue. Whichever product you choose should break down the adhesive so you can scrape away the residue with a plastic scraper. Easy-peasy!

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If you’ve tried the above methods, but still have a stubborn sticker, add in some heat. Take a hair dryer or a clothing steamer and blast the sticker. Avoid burns or discomfort by making sure your hands aren’t in the way. The hot air combined with the sticker already being damp from previous methods could help break down the glue entirely. Once the sticker is hot to the touch, scrape it away with a credit card or plastic scraper before it cools.

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Whichever above method you use, there may still be some sticky residue left over from the adhesive, Sibley says. Take a paper towel soaked with some rubbing alcohol and gently rub until the leftover glue is gone from the glass.

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Brittany Anas is a former newspaper reporter (The Denver Post, Boulder Daily Camera) turned freelance writer. Before she struck out on her own, she covered just about every beat—from higher education to crime. Now she writes about food, cocktails, travel, and lifestyle topics for Men’s Journal, House Beautiful, Forbes, Simplemost, Shondaland, Livability, Hearst newspapers, TripSavvy and more. In her free time, she coaches basketball, crashes pools, and loves hanging out with her rude-but-adorable Boston Terrier that never got the memo the breed is nicknamed "America’s gentleman."

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