Will Tape And Heat Remove Stubborn Price Tag Stickers? Here's What Our Test Revealed

Smart is the store employee who places price tags on the undersides of merchandise. These stickers can be a major pain to take off successfully, but at least they — or their residue — is hidden while your find is on display. Still, this simple practice isn't observed as often as common sense should dictate. I love a good shopping excursion, especially at the thrift store, but super sticky price tags and their leftover adhesive are regular post-purchase headaches. There's an appealing social media trend currently popping: using tape to remove price tags from smooth surfaces like glass, ceramic, and plastic. For this trick, TikTokers and Instagrammers firmly press either transparent tape or duct tape over a sticker, leaving a bit of excess tape for a pull-tab. After smoothing out air bubbles, they peel away the tape layer that conveniently pulls away the sticker, as well.

Another variation on this hack is applying heat over the taped sticker with a hairdryer. Apparently, there are sticker types you can easily remove using a hair dryer, but I'd never heard of such a handy tip. The heat is meant to soften the adhesive and help with the easy peel-off. Many of these videos also show successful removal, so there was value in trying this extra step. Our home is well-stocked with tape of all kinds, so I figured I'd try both versions of the hack — with and without extra heat — along with a few different types of tape to check out the results.

I loaded the tape rolls we had on my arm bracelet-style and found some relatively recent purchases that were still sporting a sticker. (To be fair, I held the Scotch dispenser in my hand.) I wanted to try each of the tapes on price stickers to see if they alone would make the label budge. Although I mainly saw TikTokers using clear tapes (packing and the Scotch variety) and duct tape to loosen stubborn stickers, I grabbed painters tape, as well, since I had plenty. 

Some of the TikTok and IG videos honed in specifically on TJ Maxx stickers. Not having a TJ Maxx within an easy drive kept me from heading there for a guinea pig item. So, the stickers for this test were all pretty basic: just paper on adhesive, and none were laminated. My bestickered belongings were made of glass, metal, plastic, and ceramic. The tape brand roster was thus: The duct, packing, and painters tape were all Duck brand, and the Scotch-type tape was unlabeled.

My plan was to try all of the tapes without heat first. Then, if the sticker persisted, I'd plug in the hair dryer, and try it again after a blast of high heat. I was doubtful that any but the packing or the duct tapes would do the trick, so I wanted start the experiment with Scotch tape and painters tape. From experience, I've learned that neither of these products holds particularly well. Then, I'd move on to duct and packing tapes.

One factor that I can't ignore is that I didn't have many — if any — recent purchases wearing intact price tag stickers. Yet, a good number of my thrift store finds have been showing off stickers for a few months up to, yes, even a few years. Short of buying things I didn't need, I had to try the trick with old stickers that might not react the same way newer ones would. 

Videos online showed users making a few passes with heat, adding up to about 10 seconds max over the taped sticker. I started with painters tape on the glass, metal, plastic, and ceramic surfaces. On all but the ceramic item, the tape peeled away only a bit of paper from each of the labels. The sticker on the ceramic item let go of nothing more than a shred or two of the tag with either method. There was virtually no improvement after heating the tape with a hairdryer. On to the packing and duct tapes. I had higher hopes for their ability to remove the stickers. Still, on every surface, even after heat treatment, the tape left behind all but the top layer of the stickers. 

I'm grateful that House Digest has covered heaps of other easy tips for the best sticker removal method for every type of material since the tape one was a bust for me. I'm taking my results with a grain of salt since older stickers might not respond to tape as well as newer ones. After all, there are a decent number of online videos showing that it can work for stickers on recent purchases. But even on the socials, people who tried the hack weren't always successful on what appeared to be recently purchased goods, either. With such mixed results by others, it's hard to say what my experience would be on a stickered item fresh from the store. 

If I have duct or packing tape on hand when I do bring home something new, I'd still try removing the sticker with one — if not both — of them. Heck, I'd take the extra minute or so to grab my hairdryer, too. Unless you are constantly shipping or fixing things and need to reserve your packing and duct tape caches for just these purposes, it does little harm to try this trick yourself.