Preparation
Few things are more frustrating than when you bring home a newly purchased item—be it a candle, baking dish, or vase—only to find that a label or sticker won’t budge when you try to remove it. Not only are they unsightly to look at, but the stuck-on stickers can also be hazardous if they’re left on an item you use to cook with or eat out of.
Leave it to Martha, though, to find a way to make a time consuming task so much easier. Using a household item you probably have at home right now—a hairdryer—you can try our founder’s go-to method for peeling stickers and labels off of your goods; best of all, her technique doesn’t require harsh chemicals or other costly cleaners.
“Here’s a solution for getting stubborn stickers off newly purchased items like these pie plates—just use a hair dryer,” the lifestyle mogul wrote in an Instagram post.
In the video, our founder used the high-heat mode on her hairdryer to loosen the adhesive on the back of stickers. “Apply the heat very closely to the sticker,” Martha said. “It loosens the glue and the sticker is easily removed. This can be done on metal, glass, wood, stone, anything—how simple!” After running the hairdryer over the sticker, Martha was immediately able to peel it off without leaving behind any residue.
As our founder implies, you should use this method on solid surfaces only; anything that is heat sensitive, including some forms of plastic, may begin to warp or melt if left exposed to heat for too long.
If you’re trying to remove pesky residue from a plastic item that won’t withstand the heat of a hairdryer, Martha has a trick for that, too. She says to soak the label in Goo-Gone ($7.68, amazon.com), an adhesive remover that gets rid of stuck-on gum, glue, stickers, and more. As the label begins to loosen, gently rub the Goo-Gone so it gets underneath the sticky side of the tag.
“It loosens really quickly, it’s quite surprising—it leaves a crystal clear, unscratched container underneath,” Martha said.
