Removing silk-screening from glassware

Does anyone know how I can remove silk-screening from glassware without destroying it? I've found some cool glassware to stock the bar with at resale shops but don't want to advertise a corporate golf outing or someone's prom. Any tips or ideas? Thanks!

I know that a strong concentration of star san will melt the paint off bottles, so I'd guess it was worth trying on glasses. The exact ratio escapes me.

Razor blade?

All silk screening eventually faded away on a few glasses I used to put in the dishwasher. Pretty sure the water was just that hot.

I would try rubbing alcohol.

You can use a strong mix of Star San as mentioned meaning 1oz per gallon as it is acid based, works great on bottles so I'm sure it should work on glassware. Wear gloves!

I've pulled the label off of Corona bottles with CLR, I'd expect it would work the same on glassware.

Acetone. Sold at hardware stores.

Acetone is also in diluted form in fingernail polish remover. Lil weaker but your wife or girlfriend (either/or maybe both I'm not asking) already has some.

+1 to the nail polish remover, takes the painted labels off commercial beer bottles too!

I use Muriatic acid...diluted of course...works on almost everything.

I use Muriatic as well.

I have a barrel from US Plastics I keep by my shed and slowly fill it with painted bottles and the like...once as year I dump in the acid and fill it with water and Oxyclean


Then use that water mixture on my patio to clean that.


Can find it at the Big Box Hardware stores.

Try some oven cleaner.

I've messed with this a bit using different products. In the end what mattered most was the brand and the type of paint the used. Some came off fairly easily with an acid soak (Starsan or muriatic acid) and some needed acetone. Some of them work best with a razor scrape after the soak.

Irregardless, almost all of the bottles has a faint outline of the painted areas remaining in the glass. Sometimes it was nearly impossible to see unless you held it up to the light just right and sometimes it was still pretty annoyingly easy to see.

Thanks for all the suggestions!