All of your most reliable household products could do a lot more than their marketing suggests. Today we’ll be highlighting some unexpected and unusual ways to use 15 of the household items that many of us use every day.
1. Baby Wipes
If you’ve ever been involved with sending paper invitations for a wedding, shower, or party, then we don’t have to tell you how much it can be to lick envelope after envelope to seal them shut. But there’s a super quick and easy way to skip the saliva all together—use a baby wipe to moisten the adhesive strip on the envelopes instead!
But wipes aren’t just useful for event planning. In fact, keeping a pack of wipes stashed in your car or purse can help you be prepared for just about anything!
2. Dryer Sheets
The slightly tacky texture of dryer sheets makes them surprisingly adept at removing stains and scrubbing away messes. Use them to remove deodorant marks on your shirts, clean bug splatters off your car, and much more!
3. Borax
Preserve flowers? Yep. Make slime? You bet. Clean just about everything? Absolutely! The real question is what can’t borax do?
4. Magic Erasers
Magic erasers are a dependable solution for stubborn stains on hard, dry surfaces, but they can do a lot beyond removing crayon marks from walls too! Use them to rub stains off clothing and upholstery, scrub scuffs off your shoes, and even tackle stubborn grout grime!
5. Washing Soda
Washing soda (also known as sodium carbonate, soda ash, or soda crystals) is a white, highly alkaline powder with a pH of 11, making it a safe, effective solvent for a wide range of stains. You can use washing soda as a laundry booster. Plus, it’s also a great secret weapon for cleaning your oven, stove top, and other household appliances!
6. Hydrogen Peroxide
Wash the house, treat pimples, and brush your teeth all with the help of that signature brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide. It’s one of the stars of my two-ingredient miracle cleaner for very good reason!
7. Dish Soap
If you’re a regular reader of the blog, then you know I’m a super fan of Dawn dish soap. It’s grease-cutting power is unparalleled, but even I have yet to discover every single thing you can do with it! You can use Dawn to make bubbles, de-ice sidewalks, and even soften your cuticles before painting your nails, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
8. Sponges
Sponges aren’t only useful for lathering up dirty dishes. You can use sponges to freshen up the smell of your fridge, protect your knees while gardening, or even create toys for your little ones!
9. Car Wax
You can use car wax to keep fingerprints off your fridge.
10. Compressed Air
If you have a can of compressed air at home for keeping dust out of your electronics, there’s so much more you could be doing with it! Compressed air is perfect for blasting away dirt and debris in hard-to-reach places, like the nooks and crannies of your vacuum canister, between the slats of your window blinds, and so much more.
11. Oxygen Bleach
Oxygen bleach products like OxiClean are famous for their ability to brighten up dingy whites. But OxiClean’s applications beyond the laundry room are equally impressive! You can use it as a powder, paste, soak, or spray to whiten grout, remove stickers from jars, and more.
12. Baking Soda
A staple ingredient in many baking recipes, baking soda (also known as sodium bicarbonate) has many properties that make it useful for household tasks. Add it to omelets to make them extra fluffy, sprinkle it on your mattress to freshen it up, or even relieve the symptoms of a painful UTI.