How to get a label cleanly off a bottle

Lots of tips, must of them connected with hot water or steam...

Better one: 2 spoons of water in a steam cooker, bottle inside, low fire, five minutes...

You can imagine the other ones...

I'm guessing that really improves the vintage!

So kickycan? Are you reattaching a label that says "Jesus juice"? Remember to add lots of colours.

don't bother trying to remove it.
just scan it...

Depends on the glue the labels are stuck on with. Some just about float off if you fill the empty bottle with water and stick in in a pan of water. Some seem to adhere by very gummy glue - maybe Francis' steam idea would work for that <frowns doubtfully>.

I've never resorted to organic chemicals, like mineral spirits or acetone - by that time I've tossed the bottle - so I dunno if they would work on the recalcitrant labels. There are some products made especially for label removing, but I'm not sure they are meant to keep the label intact so much as to give you clean glass.

Well, I'd never failed to peel off a label of a bottle.

But it depends on what you want the label for.

If it's just to keep it as a souvenir, try this method:

Peeling off a label

You don't need to read French, just watch the video.

Cool. Thanks! I'll try these little tricks when I get home tonight.

I like to buy 5lb boxes of velveeta and put labels taken from Mont d'Or cheeses, now, thanks to Francis. I know how.

I steamed it off by using a small pan of boiling water. Held the bottle over it and gently peeled it off bit by bit. Worked like a charm! Thanks Francis!

I probably could have just turned on the hot water in the shower to get it done quicker and easier, but I just thought of that now, so, as you can see, it was not an option available to me at the time.

Steam is the key.

Next time, use a hair dryer on highest setting and hold it against the
label. The hot air will soften the glue on the label and you can peel
it off easily.

Another excellent suggestion. Thanks for the tip, CJane. Much appreciated.

was the label for your scapbbok? Is there a back story that you would care to share?

Just remember you can't unscrew it like you did the cap.

smash bottle over your head
pick pieces of glass up off floor
carefully removing label bits from shards of glass
if it's red wine you won't even notice the droplets of blood
from bloodied head and fingers

She's baaaaaaaaaack!

Heeven! I was asking about you a few days ago on the "Lost and missing A2Kers thread!" I thought you'd disappeared for good.

Thank god you're back. I was beginning to consider doing something drastic.

So the back story is that this girl I was seeing for a couple months left this bottle of Croatian wine at my apartment the last time she came over and then we stopped seeing each other but she still wanted to know the name of the bottle of wine she'd brought over because it was from Croatia and thus printed in Croatian and thus not written with all the same english characters and thus and such and therefore not easy to simply spell out and/or tell her over the phone or e-mail and therefore she wanted me to send her the label so that she could then recommend it to her friends or maybe buy herself another bottle of it at some future date if she ever goes back to Croatia.

So there. Now you know the REST of the story.

I just fell into a coma. Oh wait .... chocolate .... I'm alright now.

You were saying?

Hold on ... you were seeing a woman? Jeez, now that's drastic ... do tell.

That story blows