So I needed to get a gunky label off a bottle yesterday for a little project I am doing and I needed goof off.
I don’t like to keep a lot of chemicals in the house so I didn’t have any on hand and I decided to research all natural alternatives to goof off.
I thought I’d post what worked for me in case any of you run into the same issue. If you are not familiar with Goof Off, it is a product that removes sticky residue and stains. It can work magic on things like price tags, tape or for those of us with little ones that put stickers on everything (including the car window). There are tons of uses for this product however the chemicals are pretty strong and well.. it is just one more thing to have on the shelf.
So if there is an alternative option to get the same results with something I already have on hand, well I am all for it!
The three natural alternatives that I found include:
- Mayonnaise
- Baby Oil
- Equal parts coconut oil and baking soda
I decided to try all three on the bottle to see which would work the best.
I let these sit on the bottle for about an hour and came back. I used a paper towel to wipe off the bottle and I can say the baby oil took the label off very well.
The mayo also worked really well. The coconut oil was the least successful and I had to do a lot of scraping to get the label off.
I actually ran the bottle through the dishwasher and there is still quite a bit of residue left where I used the coconut oil combination so I will go back over that patch with baby oil to take it off.
I found that the mayo and the baby oil worked equally well. I thought the Baby Oil was a little more pleasant to work with and you can get travel size versions of Johnson’s for about $1.00 at many stores.
i had always heard of the old peanut butter trick, and my husband recently rediscovered it. we soak our bottles in warm water with a bit of dish soap which lets the label come off easily and then all you have left is some of the glue at times. then when the pesky glue is left over, take a finger tip sized amount of peanut butter and rub it in to the glue for a minute. the peanut oils will really get the glue and take it off pretty easily. from the process we never have any left over paper or glue residue. hope it works for you!
Baby oil also works great to get Desitin off—in case you ever have little ones get into it. 🙂
Peanut butter works well also but I let it sit overnight.
Thanks for posting this. I hate to use Goof Off due to the smell. So I will try the baby oil next time when I need to get the sticky label residue off something.
I haven’t tried it on a label but for stickers on windows or tables I use peanut butter, might be worth a try?
ADeal- me too. The smell makes me lightheaded so I figure that is maybe not the best choice to have in the house ;). I don’t know about stain removal and such but the baby oil was great on that label and it was really, really adhered to the bottle.
Good for you!! Thanks for the tip!!
Another option is white vinegar – I used it to remove stubborn price stickers from picture frames and it worked great.
Great tip! I dislike the smell too. Peanut butter works for me- just have to keep th,S dog away