Removing Labels from Glass Jars and Bottles

As you may or may not know – I work part time at a resort. They have an Italian restaurant that serves up quite a bit of wine, so I asked them to save me some bottles for craft projects. A little over a month ago they brought me up a box of empty wine bottles and I had the chance to use some of them over the weekend. I decided to use some of them for simple décor, but I wanted to remove their labels. I am very familiar with removing labels from glass jars and bottles, because when the boys were little I used to recycle all of their baby food jars into luminaries.

First you need to fill your sink with hot soapy water and let them soak. I usually let mine soak for a good 40-60 minutes. Then I try to remove as much as the label as possible. All labels are different, so some may come off easy peasy, while others will really give you a fit! If your label doesn’t come off (which it probably won’t) after this soak, get as much of the label off as possible and refill the sink with hot soapy water and soak for another 30 minutes.


After this soak I use my fingernails or a butter knife to get as much of the paper off as possible. Even if you get the paper off you might see lines from where the adhesive was. See what I’m talking about in the middle bottle below?

Now here is where I pull out my secret weapon… peanut butter! I try to use the cheap kind for this so I don’t feel like I am wasting, but sometimes I just have to use my Jif. Spread it on the parts where you seem to have any adhesive or label that is not coming off and let it sit for 15-30 minutes.

Now get out a paper towel and rub off most of the peanut butter (leave some on though). With a clean paper towel start rubbing in a circular motion until you get off all of the leftover gunk. You may need to add a little more peanut butter back on and continue rubbing for any hard spots.

Then wipe them off completely and clean them with window cleaner and use them in crafts or for décor!


Enjoy,

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