18 August 2016
New Labels For Old
Some indispensable advice.
by Lynda Goetz
This being the ‘silly season’, The Daily Telegraph letters’ pages have, for a number of days and following a request for advice from a reader, been full of words of wisdom about removing old labels from jam jars – prior to filling them with the new season’s jams and chutneys. Whilst I am not sure this subject is of more than passing interest to readers of The Shaw Sheet, the wide variety of esoteric ways dreamt up for dealing with this perennial problem rather appealed and I feel compelled to pass on some of the invaluable advice. I also concluded that removing old labels was possibly preferable to the rather slapdash solution used by my late mother – she effectively left us to guess the contents of jars. Sometimes they were correctly labelled, sometimes they were not. A jar labelled ‘Marmalade January 1970’ clearly containing red jam – or a jar with pickled plums (in the days before freezers) labelled ‘Green Tomato Chutney’ – did not really pose too much of a problem to the rest of the family; but a jar, which clearly contained marmalade, sporting the label ‘Caterpillar’ in my younger brother’s handwriting, caused much merriment!
So that you have no such problems and can clearly identify your beautifully hand-crafted home produce, here are 7 ways to remove unwanted old labels and ‘limpet-like’ modern adhesives (with attributions to Daily Telegraph contributors):
- Warm soapy water, followed by a cream cleaner and a gentle scourer – her grandma’s method. (Amelia Santer, Age 11)
- Brasso (Rosemary Fraser)
- WD40 (Mary Wright)
- Score the surface of the label and then cover with newspaper (in spite of the writer’s recommendation, it probably makes little difference which publication this is!) soaked in a little white spirit or cellulose thinners. Leave in a cool place for several minutes then wipe off and wash the jar. (Paul Miskin)
- Put the jar in the dishwasher – remembering to fish the soggy label out of the dishwasher filter! (Tim Bochenski)
- Leave the jars at the mercy of the slugs for a few weeks (!) under some carpet on the compost heap. Then use Method 5 – without the need to worry about the effect on the filter. (Philip Usherwood)
- An aerosol called (would you believe) ‘Label Remover’. (Geoff Roland)
On a final note, I would add that when my mother did bother to get rid of the adhesive used on modern labels she used eucalyptus oil, applied on a cloth or with cotton wool. It works.
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