Have you ever purchased a glass vase from the store and it was really cloudy? Here’s a simple way to clean cloudy glass, without soap and water.
Have you ever purchased a glass vase, or pitcher, from the store and it had a cloudy residue inside? I recently purchased these pretty vases from Target and they were cloudy. But since the opening at the top is so small, I couldn’t rinse them or soak them the way I would normally wash a vase.
So today I want to teach you a very simple way to clean cloudy glass, without soap, glass cleaner, white vinegar, or water. All you need for this trick is rubbing alcohol. Yep, that’s right, rubbing alcohol; it works great to get that milky film off the inside of the glass!
How to clean cloudy glass, here’s what you need:
- Rubbing alcohol (if you don’t have rubbing alcohol on hand, you could also try acetone)
- Dish soap (this is my favorite)
- Paper towel (optional)
To clean the cloudy glassware all you have to do is pour a few Tablespoons of rubbing alcohol into the glass container you would like to clean. If the opening is too small to pour the rubbing alcohol into, use a spray bottle to spray it into the opening.
If the container isn’t big enough to get your hand into, cover the top of it and swirl the rubbing alcohol around in a circular motion. You will instantly see the cloudiness disappear. Once the cloudiness is completely gone, pour the rubbing alcohol out into the sink, and set your container out to dry. You can also wash the outside with rubbing alcohol but I usually just wash the outside with soap and water or .
If the container is large enough to stick your hand into, pour a little rubbing alcohol into the glass container and use a paper towel, or microfiber cloth, and wipe the entire inside of the container with the rubbing alcohol.
The results are amazing! Just look at the difference between these two glass vases!
This is a great trick for all kinds of glass, including mirrors, glass shower doors, crystal dishes that haven’t been used in awhile, picture frames, etc. It can also be used on dishes that have a build-up from dishwasher detergents, calcium build-up, hard water stains, or soap scum build-up.
And the best part about cleaning with rubbing alcohol, is that the main ingredient–isopropyl alcohol–is also a powerful disinfectant, so not only are you getting rid of the dirt, dust, and cloudiness, you’re also killing any lingering germs! Yay!
To read other easy cleaning tips in the Love to Clean Series, click the links below.
• Tips for Washing Windows and Mirrors
• The Benefits of Vacuuming and More
• How to Clean the Kitchen Sink
• How to Clean Retainers
Did you know this is one of my most popular posts!? To see more cleaning hacks people love, click on the titles below:
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- How to Get rid of HE Washing Machine Smell
- How to Wash Pillows in a Front Loading Washing Machine
- How to Clean Baked on Grease off Pots and Pans
- How to Clean Oven Glass so it looks Brand New
- How to get Nail Polish off Wood Floors
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- How to Wash a Baseball Cap
- DIY Homemade Laundry Detergent and WHY it works so well
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It’s “pour” in this case, not “poor.”
Haha, thank you! Sometimes I miss those little typos. 🙂
The alcohol did not work. Any other suggestions
I’m sorry, you can try hydrogen peroxide. If rubbing alcohol didn’t work though I wonder if the glass has calcium deposits on it, rather than just dust and regular dirtiness.
Anna, what I most like when you talk about you, is when you said you are a child of God. God bless you allways. This blessing goes from PR.
Thank you! 🙂
Bong cleaning agent will remove any sort of glass jar/vase/container residue…I remember picking up 20+apothecary bottles-vintage medicine bottles and such, I tried everything from apple cider vinegar and lemon juice with Dawn and Sea salt to soak in cleaning vinegar, dish soap and boiling water to no avail! Some were that tough! What worked for sure was when it was suggested I use a agent that cleans pot residue from their appliances…as if it was only dust..activated
that quickly! All the best!!!
That’s a great tip, thank you!
I feel like this is something I should have thought of considering I’ve used alcohol/vodka even, to clean jewelry and make it shiny. Thanks for this tip! I have more to clean now!!
The film is usually on the outside. Use steel wool. It does not scratch and takes all the film away.
It should be 0000 steel wool. A pot cleaning steel wool pad can scratch glass.
I’m so glad to read tips on how to conquer this cloudy glass problem. Thanks for sharing!!!
Will the. Alchohol clean plastic. We have a rain gauge that has gotten so cloudy that it is hard to read anymore.
I don’t think so. Usually when plastic clouds like that it’s done for. Sorry. 🙁
Try toothpaste & a toothbrush- removes the cloudiness from plastics like headlights one cars!
Hi Anna,
I have some nice dessert dishes that were given to me for a wedding present
in 1971! I have used them a lot, but lately I notice that the surface is very cloudy.
Some of the matching plates have the problem too, but not all. I wonder if its from dishwasher detergent. Is there any way I can restore the clear and shiny surface of the bowls? Thanks so much for your help! Ginny C Seattle WA
Ginny,
This is Monique, Anna’s assistant. This is a really great question. I will go ahead and add it to the list of Anna’s “Reader’s Questions”. Be on the look out for a blog post on this topic soon! Thanks for reading Ask Anna!
Would this work on crystal? I have a pitcher I used for a vase and it is cloudy in the bottom half, was a wedding gift 20 years ago would love to have it back sparkling.
I’m sure it would, it’s worth a shot!
Both rubbing alcohol and peroxide did not work. I’ve even tried vinegar. If you’re cleaning dusty jars anything would work.
That is amazing. I have two lamps that I bought cloudy and I’m wondering if I take the bottoms off if this would work. I’ll have to give it a try. Thanks for sharing this info.
Does that also work for glasses that have become cloudy in the dishwasher?
I haven’t tried it but I would imagine it would work! 🙂
I have a few old bottles around with that cloudy look. Certainly going to give this a try.
Saw a pin from your site on someone’s Pinterest, had to check you out. Hope you don’t mind if I follow you. Thank you for the great tips.
Some people are just so crazy about cleaning things around the house…and I’m one of those people! Thanks for your tips! I have a martini glass that was cloudy from my new dishwasher, and I’m giving it an alcohol rub right now!
Sad to report, it did work, temporarily, but, alas. Cloudy still there. Bummer.
If it is crystal, the lead in the crystal is the cause. Something to do with the heat temperature in the dishwasher. I have not found anything successful in clearing my couple of crystal items that alas are permanently cloudy because it is inside the crystal. Not caused from a substance within eg, old water.
Do you know if this will work for automobile headlights?
Unfortunately if this is happening in your headlights, it means a seal is broken somewhere. The damage can’t be reversed so you’ll have to look into getting new headlights, or having them repaired.
There are kits at auto stores that are supposed to fix the problem caused by UV light.
In the meantime, a rough toothpaste and a lot of elbow grease will improve the plastic. Having done that there is an improvement, however I think it is now time to invest in the kit which is about $A75.
Sounds crazy but try Off insect repellant on your cloudy headlights. It made ours look new again!
That’s a great idea, I never would have thought of that, thank you!! 🙂
Jean,
I’ve heard 40% Deet insect repelent or toothpaste works on headlights. Haven’t tried it, but worth a shot.
Toothpaste got most of the film off of my headlights, worked well.
Vinegar works well too.
Vinegar doesn’t dry quickly like alcohol and can end up leaving precipitate on a narow necked vessel.
If the glass container is especially dirty, and the neck is too small for your hand to enter? Mix coarse seasalt with just enough water to form a paste, put in bottle and shake shake shake. Repeat until clean.
Thank you! That was a typo and we fixed it. 🙂
Is this safe for drinking glasses
Hi Marvelle, this is Anna’s assistant, Bethany. This should be safe on drinking glasses, but if you’re not comfortable using the rubbing alcohol, Anna has seen that you can also use vinegar using the same method that Anna mentioned above. Otherwise you can use the rubbing alcohol on the glasses and just wash them with soap and water before drinking out of them. Hope this helps!
For years I’ve had a crystal whiskey container with a narrow top and the inside was cloudy. I’d wash it and wash it and it remained cloudy. I only displayed it and never used it but put it way in the back of my china cabinet due to it being cloudy. Thanks to your tip of using rubbing alcohol, it looks beautiful now! And so easy! The cloudiness went away immediately.
Awesome!! I’m so glad I could help. 🙂
Tried the alcohol in ny crystal wine decanter it didnt work
That is so weird. You could try Hydrogen Peroxide, it’s good for cleaning glass too. 🙂
It depends on the lead % in the crystal. I didn’t know all this until thorough search and trying everything. I think I have tried everything with the help of a chemical engineer.
Unrelated topic Anna.
One of the best tips I got from him was to keep the pool crystal clear was using blue copper sulfate. Mix a small portion in a bucket of water and spread evenly throughout, concentrating around the steps too. Leave the pool on filter for 24 hours. It will go from green to diamond crystal clear. You might need to give it a good brushing around the top of the pool and throughout. Buy the copper sulphate from the garden section of a hardware/garden store and it is a fraction of the cost of the product you buy in the pool chemical section.
Also wonderful in concentrated amounts in the pool on concrete black spots. I put the powdered copper sulfate into the smallest ziplock bags which I put into the bottom of a plastic mesh bag, like you get oranges etc in. I then filled it with marbles on top to create a weight. Just before putting it into the pool onto the black spot, I pricked the plastic bag with a needle, twice, to allow concentrated slow release on the spot and left it to do its job. When the blue sulfate has totally dissolved, it was given a good stiff brushing and if any of the black still remained I did it again. Worked wonderfully. However the plastic mesh bag will not last a long time and will need to be replaced or your next job will be fishing out the marbles. Saves having to empty the pool and a huge job of blasting the mould off, repainting and refilling the pool.
Cheers and hope you have friends who need this fix it method for green pools with black spot. It works. My pool was 40,000 ltrs. My pool service man could not get the pool in such shape and was grateful for this information.
The pools that were using this method were neighbours of the chemical engineers whose pools had become black swamps with such a problem several neighbours had taken their in-ground pools out at huge expense. The lucky ones who got the information got to keep their pools. 😉
Thank you. I kept using vinegar but it did not do the job. I have even shined the 8 year old blender i keep on cabinet.
I had some glass globes for a light fixture that came cloudy from the manufacturer. I tried everything to clean them and just was living with them that way for the past few months and always annoyed every time I looked at them. After reviewing your suggestions however, a quick wipe with rubbing alcohol did the job!! No more cloudy light fixture. Thanks so much! I will be checking out the other tips on your website and bookmark for future!
I’m so glad to hear that, Jackie!
Tried alcohol on wine classes, no luck. Wife said to use Clorox. Presto, worked instantly. Not sure if safe for all glass however.
Wow! Thank you for the tip on using isopropyl alcohol on cloudy glass. We had a decanter we wanted to put on eBay and my husband was trying to figure out how to remove the cloudiness from the inside. We spent an hour….googling tips and nothing worked. I stumbled upon your website and lo and behold……it took us 2 seconds and it worked miraculously!! And as a plus…..the alcohol evaporates quickly. Thank you! Thank you!
You’re welcome! Thank you for coming back to comment and let me know I was able to help you out. 🙂
Oh my gosh! I should have already thought of this because I often clean my bathrooms and mirrors with rubbing alcohol. I have a few glass bottles that were cloudy, some old and some new, and it worked brilliantly. I often pick up lavender glass at antique stores and while I love the color, I thought I’d have to live with the cloudiness. The alcohol was magical! The instant i poured it in, one of the bottles (the oldest and cloudiest) was Crystal clear. The other has a bit of etching and stuff that it didn’t work on, but it looks clean and clear. Ditto some green bottles that I used to keep bub me bath in. Thank you.
I don’t know if my solution works on cloudy bottles or not. I drizzle a little dishwashing detergent in, fill about 1/3 full with water then add a small handful of various sizes of plastic beads and both smooth and irregularly shaped pebbles. If the glass is thin or delicate, I simply swirl the bead/pebbles around. If the glass is sturdy, I shake, rattle and roll. It seems the combination of smooth and nubbly removes most stubborn residue. I have had a couple cloudy bottles shine up. It looks like the alcohol will be a handy extra tool to try. Thank you for sharing!
That’s a great idea too, thank you for sharing. 🙂
I have expensive crystal wine glasses I mistakenly put in dishwasher –BAD IDEA!!! Won’t do that ever again. They have had a milky film ever since and I can’t seem to get it off. I hand wash all my wine glasses now and it doesn’t seem to help remove it either. I tried alcohol and that didn’t work, neither did hydrogen peroxide. I think, however, I’m going to try Wright’s Silver Polish because my husband fixed antique glasses with tiny chips on the rims by rubbing with soft sand paper and they suggested then polishing with Wright’s Silver Polish to smooth it off. I bet this might work ~ just thought of it!
I’m off to try it!
Jan
Let me know if that works! I’d love to know in case I ever run into the same problem! 🙂
When I served on altar guild at my church we had crystal cruits that were narrow at the top and very difficult to clean. We used the alcohol trick and it worked well most of the time. For really stubborn stains we would fill them with hot water, drop in a few denture cleaning tablets and just let them set. That usually did the trick.
Love that idea too, thank you for sharing! I’ll have to try that next time I have a tricky vase. 🙂
The alcohol really worked. I got some antique bottles for crafting and nothing I tried worked. Love ❤️ this remedy!
Awesome! Thank you for coming back to let me know you had great results! 🙂
Hi Anna, cleaning cloudy glass does it work on car headlights (possibly plastic)…thanks…
I don’t think this would work on headlights because I think the discoloration that happens with the plastic is some sort of chemical reaction, which I don’t think is reversible. Sorry. 🙁
I use one tablet of denture cleaner. Fill with water and drop the tablet in and wait until the water has no color.
That’s a great tip, thank you! I’ll have to give it a try. 🙂
this worked on an old glass top canning jar after trying vinegar thank you
Awesome! You’re welcome. 🙂 Thank you for letting me know!