I really like laptop stickers. They make our boring work laptops seem a bit more jolly, so I stick a ton of them on the back of my macbook.

Problem is, no matter how cool a sticker looks today, you are going to get bored of it in a few months, or it is going to get dirty or destroyed after the daily use of your laptop, so I like to replace them every few months.

The first few attempts were treacherous, it took me almost an hour to remove the sticker and their residue and the result was mediocre at best. Fortunately I already had quite a few stickers handy and I just covered over the remaining residue with them.

Today I wanted to remove almost all the stickers again, but I still have not decided on their replacement. I unleashed my two little boys on the stickers and they quite happily removed all of them, unfortunately leaving A LOT of residue behind.

I first tried nail polish remover with some cotton. Then I tried the same with paper towels. Then tried some white vinegar. Then moved onto rubbing alcohol. They didn’t make a bent on the residue. It was just moving around, creating a thin, sticky layer over the whole surface of the laptop. I was getting desperate, so desperate times, call for desperate measures. I took out the baking soda…

Rubbing with just baking soda had an interesting effect as it eliminated the stickiness of the residue, but it needed a lot of elbow work to get even the smallest amount off. So I thought, if only the baking soda could also dissolve the glue residue… wait a minute… the rubbing alcohol did that quite well, so what if I combine the two?

The world will never be the same. I now give you the BEST solution to removing sticker residue from your aluminum (not sure how plastic would handle that) laptop surface. S

Spread some baking soda over the surface, then wet the whole area with rubbing alcohol. Using a paper towel gently rub the baking soda and rubbing alcohol mixture over the residue. In mere seconds all the residue is gone.

As soon as you are done the surface will look awfully white, but don’t worry, just use a wet paper towel to clean over it and your laptop will look cleaner than ever.

Who knows, now that I know it is so easy to remove stickers, I might do it even more often.

Give it a shot, you can thank me later.