There are plenty of ways you can use potatoes other than as food. From polishing silverware to fixing shoes, there are plenty of ways to put these starchy staples to work all around the house. Here are some amazing uses outside the kitchen for potatoes that may be new to you:
1. Tarnish Remover
There is a reason to keep the water you use to cook potatoes. It can remove unsightly tarnish from your silverware. After you have boiled and removed potatoes, soak your silverware in the water for about an hour. Then remove and rinse.
2. Rust Cleanser
Cut a raw potato in half and use it to clean rust off your pots, pans or gardening tools. The potato’s acid content works to dissolve the rust. If you sprinkle on some salt, you will have even more cleaning power.
3. Reduce Puffy Eyes
Similar to the way many people use cucumber slices, you can use raw potato slices to ease eye puffiness and discomfort. Simply lie down for about 10 minutes with raw potato slices on your closed eyelids for quick relief. If the potato is chilled, it works even better.
4. Shoe Shiner
The juice in a raw potato can help make your shoes look shiny. Simply rub your shoe’s surface with the edge of a freshly cut raw potato and wipe clean.
5. Remove Stains from Carpets or Clothing
Potatoes will not only help you remove stains from your hands during food prep and when cooking. They can also be used to remove stains from carpets, clothing, or other fabric items.
Rub potato on berry stains or scrub the stain with a raw, grated potato and then rinse with warm water.
6. Window/EyeglasZ
Rub the cut part of a potato half on the inside of your windshield or car window. The juice from the potato will prevent condensation from forming. You can also try some potato on the inside of your ski or swim goggles in the same way.
7. Ease Aches and Pains
One of those potato folk remedies that are still in use today is to use potato juice to soothe the pain from sprains, bumps, and bruises. Just apply a potato slice or the juice you have squeezed from potatoes to the affected area.
8. Hot or Cold Pack
You may have read books in which characters keep hot potatoes in their pockets to keep their hands warm. Potatoes will retain heat or cold for a surprisingly long time. Similarly, you can use a potato as a hot or cold compress to help ease the pain of aching muscles.
9. Make an Acne Busting Cleanser and Toner
Acidic, drying and naturally astringent, potatoes can also be used to make acne busting cleanser and toner that is great for greasy skin.
Simply apply potato juice to blemishes, or wipe the juice over your whole face.
10. Make Yourself a Facial Mask
Blend a potato with some yogurt, or the white of an egg, and you can create a facial mask.
Leave it on for 15 minutes or so and then rinse your face thoroughly to leave your complexion fresh and glowing.
11. Generate Power
This is a trick you may have tried when you were at school. A potato can be used to make a kind of battery.
Potatoes contain a lot of water, and the liquid can act as an electrolyte and generate electricity between zinc and copper electrodes. Power a light bulb, or another small electrical device.
A potato boiled for 8 minutes can produce ten times the power of a raw one. A potato battery can light up a room for over a month.
Could this be the new eco-friendly off-grid solution you’ve been looking for?
12. Fertilize Plants
You can also make a potato a more direct food source for plants like geraniums.
Make a hole in a large potato and pop a geranium stem inside and the potato will help the plant get off to a great start, whether planted in a pot, a larger container, or in the ground.
This is also a popular way of propagating rose cuttings.
13. Make a Stamp For Decorating and Crafts
Potatoes also make excellent stamps. You can carve a raw potato to create your own stamp designs and use these in a range of different crafts.
You could use them to decorate your own wrapping paper, for example, or even use them to stamp out a paint design on furniture, or your walls.