Homemade Goo Gone Label Remover

I recently got a store-bought kombucha and decided I wanted keep and reuse the bottle. Unfortunately, the label was giant and completely wrapped the bottle. I took the steps to remove the label by boiling the bottle in water for 5 minutes. While hot but able to be handled, I grabbed the bottle and peeled the label off pretty easily. But what remained was a crazy amount of sticky glue residue.

Now I had the task of figuring out how to remove all that residue. At first I ran it under hot water with dish soap and a scour sponge, but all that seemed to happen was getting the green color of the scour stuck onto the glue. Then I tried vinegar which seems to work for lots of other things but it didn't work either. I realized I needed to do a quick YouTube search to see if anyone has figured this out, and sure enough someone had.

A Place To Nest video had a super simple recipe that worked for her project. I figured I'd give it a try for mine. The recipe was two ingredients - one part baking soda and one part coconut oil. That's it! I mixed it in a small dish and spread it on the glass like peanut butter. I then grabbed a paper towel and worked the mixture into the glue. At first it seemed slow to work, but as I kept working, sure enough the glue would come off. After about 3 applications of the spread, my bottle was free of the glue and ready for a final rinse to get squeaky clean. 

Below are some pictures for reference. Be sure to give this a try next time you have some leftover residue to remove. Also, like I did, find a bottle that you may be throwing away that could be reused. Thanks to this, I now drink more water and liquids than I did before. And I don't need to feel bad if I happen to forget the bottle somewhere. I can just buy another kombucha and start the process over again.