The Easiest Way To Remove Stickers From Glass

Stickers are all fun and games until they wind up stuck to the wrong surface. There are all sorts of situations that can lead to stubborn stickers on glass: young kids placing them on your windows, price tags that are adhering too firmly to that vase you bought, or even home security stickers that are clinging to your front door. While it would be nice if these stickers came off as easily as they went on, that is simply not the case. When you try to gently peel stickers off of glass, they often rip unevenly, leaving a stubborn adhesive portion behind. Before you resign yourself to ineffectively scraping the sticker off with your fingernail, why not try the easiest way to remove stickers from glass?

In order to actually get a sticker off a glass surface, you'll need a common personal care item: a hair dryer. Begin by setting the styling tool to medium heat, then holding it several inches from the sticker. Keep the warm air blowing on the sticker for a couple of minutes before checking if the adhesive has loosened. With any luck, this household item will remove the sticker and adhesive from the glass, allowing it to peel off easily. If needed, you can scrape any remaining adhesive off with a sharp plastic-edged tool, then finish it off with glass cleaner and a microfiber cloth for a truly clean, shiny surface.

Some people are content knowing that a hack works without diving into the why of the matter. If you are a curious individual, however, understanding why a hair dryer will cleanly remove a sticker from glass could be of interest. Adhesives, like those found on stickers, work by creating a bond between them and the surface that they stick to. This is what makes it so darn tricky to remove your child's favorite stickers from your front window — especially if they've been there for a while. 

So if you want to remove a sticker from glass, you need something that will break the adhesive bonds that have been formed; one of the easiest ways to do that is heat. In simple terms, heat makes adhesive ineffective by breaking down the chemical bonds that are responsible for its stickiness. Once your trusty hair dryer is aimed at a sticker for several seconds, the properties of the adhesive are altered, rendering it unable to stick anymore.

This method for removing stubborn stickers from glass can be applied to a number of glass objects: a glass coffee table, windows, jars, and even your bathroom mirror. The key to success is not to apply too much heat for too long — 30 seconds to a minute of targeted heat should yield the desired results, increasing in increments as needed. Additionally, you should avoid trying this hack on an exterior window or glass door during winter. This is because the heat from the hair dryer, in contrast to the cold temperature of the glass, can cause the glass to warp or crack.

You may be wondering whether you can use a hair dryer to remove stickers from other surfaces, and the answer is: it depends. While it is generally safe for many surfaces to receive moderate heat from a hair dryer, some materials are best left untouched by heat. This includes electronics, whose components can get damaged by high temperatures, as well as wooden surfaces (especially untreated ones), which may warp from the excessive heat. In these cases, you can reach for a common cooking ingredient to remove sticky residue. To play it safe, do a spot test on surfaces with ultra-challenging adhesive, and consider this brilliant hack that'll remove stickers from your glass items using nail polish remover.