So I have this anime mug of questionable quality but with a design I like using for hot drinks.
However, whatever the outer layer has been flaking off. I don't know what that layer is, doubt it's enamel considering it's extremely thin and brittle, but as handwashing it proved that layer is protecting the paint underneath.
I circled in blue an area where the coating has bubbled up/detached from the mug and in red where it has already flaked off.
I could use a different mug, but I like this one. I could buy another identical one (probably) but there's no guarantee it won't have the same defect.

I've been looking around for some food-grade coating material. I looked for varnishes first, but all the food grade ones either can't handle heat like at all (most don't resist 70ºC, let alone anything close to boiling) or are industrial grade sold in expensive buckets meant for stuff like insulating silos.
Then I found out about food grade epoxy resin and that seemed promising, but I was told that heat can degrade it into noxious subproducts so that was another dead end.
I haven't been able to find anything else and all further advice has been to just give up. I mean it's just a cheap mug but I don't like this sense of defeat, surely there must be a way, right?
Does anon know about any coating that will protect the paint without killing me in the process?

properly repairing ceramics isnt easy. that outer coating thats coming off is glass, and you dont know what the glaze is made of or what the material under it contains. you should do a lead test on the exposed area. the only way to repair it correctly would be to add more glaze and refire it, which requires a kiln and glaze and specialized knowledge. you might be able to contact some local potters and ask if they might be able to help you repair it, but you will spend more time and money than its worth trying to fix it when you can buy 4 of them for $10 online.

Oh, so potentially it's already dangerous?
Since the coat is so thin and it came off I assumed it had to be something something cheap rather than actual glaze.
That's precisely what I wanted to avoid since I don't have any access, personal or paid, to a kiln (already looked into it since it was the most direct solution).
But ceramics aside, is there really no general-use coating that is both food safe and heat resistant?

>>2923535
Cheap glaze is glass, too. You've been drinking little flakes of glass.
The mug is doomed, and there's at least one creative way to seal its surface in a durable, heat-safe, food-grade-material way: season it with oil like a goddamn pan. That'll mean getting it pretty hot, which will probably degrade the cheap glaze more, and you'll have to balance your choice in oil against the kinds of temperatures you can hit with a torch or oven.
That's going to result in brown spider-web-style cracks appearing across most of its surface, and you'll be able to repeat the process to continue trapping and locking the glass particles with further polymerized oil, eventually turning the entire mug any variety of chocolatey brown and black.
That's about as smart as trying to save a cheap anime mug that's been giving you some digestive issues for a little while.

>>2923665
I almost want to try that out just from how stupid it sounds.
Unfortunately I didn't add Glass Flakes to my diet, I stopped using it as soon as I noticed the problem. But if it's gonna be this unsalvageable, then maybe I should have it brown...