Hey, I get it – those pesky price tag stickers can be a real pain to remove, especially if they’ve been around for a while. But there’s an intriguing social media trend going on right now that claims you can use tape to easily peel them off. Sounds promising, right? I had to put this hack to the test and see if it really works. The basic idea is that you press either clear tape or duct tape over the sticker, smooth it out, and then just peel the tape away – taking the sticker with it. Some people even add a blast of heat from a hairdryer to soften the adhesive and make the removal even easier. Seemed worth a try, so that’s exactly what I did.
Lindsay Donaldson/House Digest
Can Tape And Heat Get Rid Of Sticky Price Tags? Our Test Explains
Different types of tape and surfaces to test
Lindsay Donaldson/House Digest
I rounded up all the different tapes I had – duct, packing, painters, and Scotch-type. Then I found some older purchases that still had stickers on them, like glass, metal, plastic, and ceramic items. I wanted to test each tape on a variety of surfaces to see how they’d perform.
My plan was to first try the tapes without any heat, and if that didn’t work, I’d bust out the hairdryer and see if the extra warmth would help. I figured the duct and packing tapes would be the most effective, but I wanted to start with the Scotch and painters tape first since they’re generally not as sticky.
Testing the tapes (plus heat) to peel off price tags
Lindsay Donaldson/House Digest
Okay, so the reality is that a lot of my stickers were pretty old, like months or even years old. I know that might not be the fairest test, since fresh stickers might react differently. But hey, that’s what I had to work with. Anyway, the painters tape barely did anything – just peeled off a tiny bit of the paper on most surfaces. The packing and duct tapes didn’t fare much better, even after I hit them with the hairdryer. The stickers just stubbornly stayed put.
Tape doesn’t remove old stickers but might remove new ones
Lindsay Donaldson/House Digest
So the tape trick was a bust for me, at least when it came to removing those old, stubborn stickers. But I’m still willing to give it a try if I come across any new purchases that need sticker removal. From what I’ve seen online, it does seem to work better on freshly applied tags. And hey, it’s an easy enough thing to try – just grab some duct or packing tape and give it a shot. Worst case, it doesn’t work and you’re back to square one. But if it does work, that’s one less annoying sticker to deal with!
