The trick is to do it so that you get very little on the bars. With cotton tape, and two or three light coats, done carefully, you hardly get any on the bars, in my experience. Tape peels off leaving a fairly clean surface. Just wipe it down to get the light residue off. I do the final clean up with lacquer thinner, as I remember. Denatured alcohol won't cut dried shellac, at least, very quickly. It will dissolve it, eventually, but I use something that's quicker. No, I don't like working with VOC's either, but I'm a realist. If a person has a thing against the shellac trade and its processes, or the volatile organic chemical thing, the answer is fairly simple. Don't coat your cotton tape with anything. I like it both ways. Coated and un-coated.