A note about links: If we include links to retail sites like Amazon or elsewhere, it's because we either use the items ourselves in our own shop or they're relevant to the topic. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
It’s entirely possible to shoot a good number of times with the same cups without ever needing to clean them. There are times, though, when it just has to be done. Over time, residue builds up, plastic bits accumulate, and the occasional gnat ends up in a cup. I also find that some plastisol blends tend to be “stickier” than others, or don’t cure as well in bigger cups. In my case, I tend to do a lot of woodworking about 10 feet away from where my bait operations live, so dust and particles sometimes make their way into the cups stored on the bench.
Whatever the case may be for you, you’re inevitably gonna have to give your cups a good cleaning. When that time comes, the method that works best for me is rubbing alcohol, microfiber cloths, and some elbow grease, swapping in paper towels for the microfiber if that’s what you have on hand.
Paper towels or microfiber?
You can use paper towels, but in my experience, stubborn or sticky plastic residue will fight them more than the microfiber, so it takes longer and requires 2x more elbow grease.
I’ve stopped using paper towels for this completely, and these days I use microfiber cloths instead. They do a far better job of getting stubborn plastic unstuck from the glass, in a fraction of the time and effort. We buy them in bulk on Amazon, so we always have some ready to go. We reuse as many as we can, but once a cloth has been used on plastic (hot, liquid, or dried), we toss it. Plastic can be near impossible to get out of a cloth, and my wife doesn’t want plastic-soaked cloths anywhere near our laundry room.
How I clean a cup
I start by adding enough alcohol to cover the bottom of a cup about 1/8 of an inch.
Whether you use 70%, 91%, or 99%, just check the ingredients label to make sure all you see is isopropyl alcohol and water, with no other additives. Then you should be good to go, as long as you also remember to let your cups dry so all the water evaporates before you use them again.
Then I work the microfiber cloth down into it and get to wiping, starting with the bottom first and working up the cup. This will curdle the plastic, drastically reduce any stickiness, and clean it out quick.
It’ll also soak enough alcohol into your rag that you can clean a good 3-4 more cups without needing more. A little rubbing alcohol goes a long way if you use it right.
Looking for cups? I use Pyrex and Anchor cups too, but this cup set is the one I prefer. More on why in the beginners guide.