Tired of those old stickers you adorned your laptop with? Me too. No, I don’t mean yours. I’m sure yours are fine; well, except for that Bieber Rocks! one. What were you thinking!? Anyway, here’s couple of tips on how to remove Bieber and his sticky cousins.
First, power down your laptop, unplug it, and close the lid. Try to remove as many of those old stickers by simply peeling them off. Some will come off cleanly, many won’t. Don’t worry if some of the residue is left behind. Now head to your kitchen and grab that good old no-stick cooking spray and apply liberally to a small section of the laptop surface. Don’t be stingy. The idea is to keep the area you’re working on soaked in the stuff for at least 10-15 minutes – the longer, the better though. Make sure to not let it run down the sides and creep into cooling vents, on to your keyboard, etc.
Now grab one of those plastic paint scrapers (emphasis on the word plastic here) you’d find at any big-box hardware store and start gently scraping off the remaining sticker residue, reapplying the cooking spray as necessary. Continue working your way across the surface of your laptop by applying the cooking spray, letting it soak in, then gently scraping.
Once you’ve exhausted the capabilities of that paint scraper, any remaining residue can usually be removed with a little more cooking spray and a nylon scrubbing pad.
This simple combination of cooking spray, gentle scraping and patience should remove those old stickers and any remaining residue they leave behind. If for some reason the cooking spray isn’t getting the job done for you then WD-40 or a citrus base adhesive remover like goo gone may be a good alternative. Both should be safe to use on your laptop but of course you should test these products first on someplace inconspicuous.
As a final step gently clean off the surface of the laptop using a clean wash cloth, warm water and dish washing soap, then dry using a clean cloth or paper towel.
There you have it. A couple of tips on how to remove those old laptop stickers using materials you can easily find around the house. Do you have more tips or ideas? Leave them in the comment section.