Sprinkle the towel with the liquor (shochu is a popular Japanese choice) and wrap it around your neck.
When the liquor is applied to the neck and throat it irritates the skin causing an increase in blood flow. This increase in blood will hasten the healing process in much the same way as a fever helps to combat a virus. Just don't ask us to help you when you have to explain the alcohol smells.\
After washing soak those stinky foot warmers in some water and vodka.
Some types of foot bacteria will cling to fabric even after you have washed it with detergent. Alcohol, specifically vodka, contains ethanol which disinfects and removes odor. If you don't want to waste the vodka, then use vinegar. The results will be about the same, though the vinegar uses a more fermented version of the ethanol.
Toss the misshapen shirt in a tub of soapy warm water. Slosh the sweater in the water pulling the suds through it several times. Wrap it up in a towel like you would a roll of sushi and then lay out flat. You will be able to reshape it with your fingers.
The suds on the sweater allow the fibers to stick together and become pliable. As the fibers come together they will begin to weave, changing the shape of the fabric to your desire.
Keep a couple of ice cubes handy and suck on them a few minutes before getting out. This will allow that warm feeling to linger with you a lot longer.
When you leave a bath or shower your body cools as a results of the evaporation of water from the skin. The ice cubes, like ice cream or a cold drink, cool your body from the inside and decreases the difference between the cool air and your warm body. Your body is warm, but you feel more comfortable with the cooler air around you.
Bathe your mangoes in a tub of hot tap water for about ten minutes and your mangoes will be as sweet as ever. Be careful not to overdo it as they will begin to prune.
Mangoes, unlike most fruit, continues to ripen after it is picked. When they are placed in hot water, this process speeds up saving you says of waiting. WARNING: If the water is over 110 degrees it will harm the fruit.
Take a wire hangar and stretch it so that the hook is your handle and the hangar has a diamond shape. Drape a nylon over the hangar and you've made your own feather duster.
Stockings or nylons have a large amount of static which attracts dust. Rather than simply moving it around you will be picking the dust up and removing it from your house for good.
Have some tea. Drink a cup of green tea after any meal that leaves you with an unwanted garlic aftertaste and you'll freshen your breath.
Green tea contains catechin which prevents the spread of odorous bacteria in your mouth. Small particles of the tea also attract the bacteria and shrink them. The result is fresh breath.
Lavender oil should do the trick. Just add it to some water and wipe down your surfaces. You can even use it on your skin if you like.
Mosquitoes hate the smell of lavender like we hate the smell of garbage. The mosquitoes will abandon your furniture, table, and guests in favor of a better smelling meal. Plus lavender has the added bonus of smelling great.
Try adding a few grains of salt and then heating it in the microwave. You just brought your coffee back from the dead.
When coffee cools down it gets stale and bitter. The salt reduces the bitter taste allowing the original aroma of the coffee to revive when it's nuked.
White shoe polish will work. Just spray or rub it over the affected parts and the itch will disappear.
Traditional show polish has clay, specifically pipe clay, which coats the itch and acts like calamine lotion to soothe the itch.
Sure, before you leave grab your nail polish and a tennis ball, yes ﾖ a tennis ball. Hold the ball in your hand and face your nails towards you. Start at the base of the nail and sweep the polish across the nails for a perfect polish regardless of how bumpy the ride.
Gripping a soft object like a tennis ball steadies the hand and prevents the moving and shaking that would usually occur. If you don't have a tennis ball handy, you can use any small round object of similar size.
Take rubber bands and tie them to each corner using about an inch of the blanket, then fold the corners underneath. You will think you have put cement blocks on your blanket.
The reason your picnic blanket floats away is because air gets caught underneath the mat. Securing the corners will keep air from entering underneath the blanket, thus securing it to the ground.
Dry orange peels in the sun for a day and then wrap then in a cloth bag. Add the bag your bath and let it float around with you.
Orange peels have citrus oils, which help the body circulate blood, making you feel warmer, longer. The oils also produce a film on the surface of the water allowing less heat to be lost from the water.
Drip a few drops of olive oil into your mug and the foamy bubbles will be gone before your eyes.
All oils have hydrophobic sides which attach to the proteins creating the bubbles and rip them apart. If you don't have any oil, the natural oils of your skin work as well. Just touch the tip of the foam with your finger to get a similar result.
Cross the pant legs over each other and you will find that it is much harder to knock them off.
Pants have more weight at the waist than they do through the legs. When you simply fold them in half over the hangars the weightier side takes over if it's knocked. Hanging the legs over in a cross pattern locks them on the hangar. If your pants are slippery they will also have increased friction between the legs keeping them safely on the hangar.
The trick is apple cider vinegar. Dab a small amount onto a bit of cotton and rub your zit.
The acidity of the vinegar acts like a chemical peel, disinfecting the area and removing the dead layers of skin. WARNING: Use cautiously as vinegar can irritate sensitive skin.
Take a pair of green whole green onions and slice the top of the fronds. Stick the onion in your nose, bulb out, and watch as your nose and sinuses magically clear. As a bonus the nose plugs stop the dripping snot that usually accompanies a stuffy nose.
Green onions, or scallions, like all onions contain compounds (sulphuric amino acids) that make your eyes water when cut and tongue sting when tasted. The same is true for the nose. Exposure of these compounds to the nasal cavity promotes running and relieves the built up pressure.
Take a recent receipt from a store and rub it across your nails in a buffing motion.
The standard paper used for receipts today is called thermal paper. The best are usually found at gas stations or when you use your credit card. The paper, which is heat activated, has microscopic bumps on the surface. This texture is a great buffing surface and will bring out the true shine of your nails.
You'll need a screw driver and a few tablets of aspirin. Open the battery cover and put a couple aspirin into each side. You will be able to start your car in a few minutes.
Aspirin contains an acid (acetylsalicylic acid to be precise) similar to the sulfuric acid in your car's battery. These acids combine and stimulate electrolytes within the battery which helps it to start. WARNING: Opening a battery can be dangerous so be careful. The aspirin will boost your battery for a short while, but it is bad for it's longevity.
A simple mixture of salt and lemon juice can rub out the rust. Mix on part lemon juice with three parts salt and apply the paste to a smooth rag. Rub the bike down where it's rusty and rinse with water.
The citric acid found in the lemon juice reacts with iron oxide (or rust) and dissolves it. The salt adds texture to the juice helping it to penetrate the rust covered areas without damaging the good metal.
Bowing is an ancient Japanese custom that is used for more than showing respect. It can also help you to keep warm when it's freezing. Take 10 deep and slow bows. You will feel warm not only physically, but spiritually as well.
Moving when you are cold will always combat condition. Bowing is more effective than most movement because it stimulates the larger blood vessels (arteries) and receptors (nerves) to increase blood flow. The main body arteries are contracted and relaxed, like flexing, which directly increases circulation.
Tape a rubber band to the middle of the pen and twist it in a winding motion. Release the rubber band and the pen will twirl back until the rubber band is no longer twisted. Try the pen now.
Most of the time when a pen runs out of ink, it is not - in fact - out, it is blocked. The twirling motion that the rubber band provides unclogs the blocked pen and allows ink to reach the tip. WARNING: Be sure the cap is on tight before you begin to twirl.
Soak your feet in hot water, then put on some wet, cold, cotton socks and cover with some dry wool ones. This will lower your temperature by several degrees, quickly.
As your body attempts to warm your feet, it sends the warm blood and lymphatic fluid. This lowers the overall body temperature and kick starts the healing process. The medical term for this process is hydrotherapy.
During the day grab some non stick cooking spray and coat the area where the doors meet with it. Particularly looking for the rubber gaskets between the doors.
The oily cooking spray lubes the surface of the doors and gaskets stopping water particles from freezing in between the doors. It's the same reason a pan that has been sprayed with oil will bead off any water dropped on it.
Take a full bottle of when and hold it up to your chest as you sing. You will find those high notes are much easier to hit.
Weight lifting tenses up your muscles. Your vocal cords, which are muscle, react in the same way. The stretching of the cords allows the larynx to vibrate more quickly. This allows you to sing higher and with more clarity. WARNING: extensive use of this can strain the vocal cords and cause them to tare and scar.
Once the bleeding has stopped and clotted, seal it with superglue.
Superglue has a hold like no other. It will bind with the naturally forming scab and peel off in much the same manner. The advantage is the strength in the glue. If you are worried about the chemicals of the glue you should know that cyanoacrylate, the active ingredient in glue, is the same fluid that you produce to create a scab.
There are two methods you might try. You can simply stick some tape over the affected area to relieve the itch or suck out the itch with a straw.
The science behind this techniques is based in distraction. The tape covers the whole area and applies pressure which relieves the itchy feelings. Sucking at the bite with a straw pulls the tension caused by mosquito in the opposite direction and therefore alleviates it.
Grab a bucket of water and add hair conditioner. Throw in the sweater and let stand for about 30 minutes. Your sweater should be back to it's original size.
The reason wool shrinks is because the fibers tangle. Conditioner has amodimethicone, which untangles hair. It works the same for fabric to untangle the wool and restore it's size.
Just add baby powder. Sprinkle some powder over the heart of the tangle and watch as it disappears
Baby powder is made of very small granules, mostly talc and cornstarch. These slide easily into any crevice. They penetrate the knots and tangle like a lubricant softening them and making the tangle a snap to undo.
Take an egg shell and crumple it against the marks on the pan buffing it to a shine like it was new.
Due to the calcium carbonate, a large component of the shell, crushed egg shells act as a buffing agent to a pan. Left over egg white residue on the inside of the shell also helps trap burn particles on the pan and remove them.
Take a sliced potato and rub the fleshy side against the mirror.
A potato is made mainly of starches and proteins, both of which absorb moisture. This helps clear the water from your mirror. Potatoes also have a substance called lecithin that repels water and prevents it from rebuilding on your mirror.
Wave a garbage bag around to fill it with air. Tilt the blow up toy upwards and place a straw in it's air hole. Place the garbage bag over the opposite end of the straw and deflate the bag slowly.
When you wave the garbage bag around you fill it air. The straw allows you to clamp the air over the deflated toy so that it can be used to fill it. This will fill an air toy until it is almost full of air, without ever having to blow into it.
Ice it. Take an ice cube and press it on the hair gum for several minutes. It will harden and become much easier to remove.
When gum is warm it sticks and stretches marvelously, but when cooled it becomes hard and brittle. Once the gum hardens and breaks into pieces it also loses it's stickiness.
Using the tape from an old cassette, assuming you have some around, and an old stocking you can create your own window wiper. Ball the tape and stuff it into the stocking, tie off the stocking and use it to clean your windshield.
The ferric oxide dust found on most cassettes, as well as cobalt, is the same stuff used in finishing polish. The stocking keeps the tape in a ball to maximize it's cleaning ability.
After wearing the jacket in the rain, blow dry it. Blow drying the outer surface of the jacket evenly will re-waterproof it.
Most jackets that are made to handle the rain have a DWR (durable water-resistant) outer layer. With use this layer becomes flat allowing the water to enter the jacket making it, and you, wet. When you heat the layer with a blow dryer it re-activates the fluorochemicals in the DWR layer restoring it's water repelling qualities. If you don't have a blow dryer on hand, you can use your clothes dryer on high heat. Just toss it in for about 30 minutes.
Take the papers and toss them into a stocking. Tie it up and throw it in the wash.
After a full wash cycle the paper will be shredded and the ink should be illegible. The pieces will have rounded corners and be impossible to reform, just like you shredded it in a professional paper shredder.
Not if you have a few marbles around. Dump some glass marbles into each sock and tie them with rubber bands, sealing in the marbles. Do laundry as usual and you will find those stained socks aren't stained anymore.
The marbles help clean in a couple of ways. They break the soap bubbles into very small bubbles which increases their cleaning ability. The marbles also help by rubbing the socks from in inside like agitators do. WARNING: Some front load washers may have too much force and smash the marbles.
Take liquid soap and some hydrogen peroxide and mix it together. You will have a great homemade red wine remover.
Peroxide, among other things, is a bleaching agent. It turns the color compounds of red wine from red to white. The reason wine is so hard to get out is because it is not water soluble. The soap, having both hydrophilic and hydrophobic ends, grabs the color compounds and allows the peroxide to act on them and remove them from the clothes.
Instead of putting the bottle on ice, put it on salt and ice. Layer the salt and ice in the bucket and the champagne will be chilled and ready to serve in much less time.
When ice melts into water it dissolves the salt. This mixture of salt and water actually has a lower freezing temperature than normal water, this melts the ice faster in a process known as latent heat fusion. The faster the ice melts the cooler it makes the bottle.
The trick is loosening the skin of the egg. You do this by putting the eggs into a hard plastic container filled with water and shaking it around for a few seconds. The shell will crack making it much easier for you to peel.
Hard-boiled eggs are so hard to peel because the shell and skin stick to the white of the egg. Shaking them in a container full of water cracks the surface letting water and air into the space between the white and the skin which makes them easy to peel.
Plug your large set of headphones into the microphone jack on your PC. Use a music playing application to amp the headphones and turn them into your own mic, perfect for some karaoke.
The technology of headphones and microphones are pretty much the same, except in reverse. All it takes to make headphones into a mic is a reverse in the current that feeds it. This is exactly what your mic jack does. It takes the current produces by your voice on the headphones and turns it into sound.
A few drops of bleach is the answer. The affect is the same as the solution they give you at the floral shop. Just add a few drops to the water. If you don't have bleach handy, you probably have a penny. Just drop it into the water for the same result.
Household bleach, or chlorine bleach, prevents the growth of fungus on the plant stems. This keeps the flowers looking fresh and healthy for longer. The copper within a penny is also a fungicide and will do the trick too.
Add an aluminum strip underneath your bar of soap and it won't run.
The foil undercarriage reduces the surface area at the bottom of the soap. This prevents it from getting to wet and running. If you lack aluminum foil, try cardboard or even plastic.
Add a cup of mouth wash to the water in the toilet. Let it stand for 15 minutes or so and then go at the bowl with your brush using the water in the bowl. One flush and your done.
Mouth wash is meant to disinfect and clean your mouth and that's exactly what it will do to your toilet. Not only will your toilet shine, you won't have to deal with harsh chemicals in your house.
Leftover water from boiling some spinach is the key. Dip an old toothbrush in the spinach water and scrub the stain. A towel should be sufficient for absorbing the excess water and coffee as it lifts off your carpet. Repeat these steps several times and the coffee stain should be nothing more than a memory.
Conventional cleaners don't work as well on coffee because it has tannins and polyphenols in it. These acids require a neutralizing agent like oxalic acid, found in spinach, to remove them. WARNING: The spinach water may have an adverse effect on white carpets. Chlorophyll in the water may leave your carpet with a green stain instead.
Take a mixture of one part vinegar to eight parts water and use it to rinse your hair and scalp after you've washed it with shampoo. The result will be a nice glossy shine to your hair.
Making your hair shine is all about having healthy cuticles. When they are open they make your hair look stiff, dull, and disheveled. Closed cuticles give your hair a glossy finish that can't be beat. The vinegar removes excess build up around the cuticles allowing them to close tightly. This will result in a beautiful mane of hair.
Make some tea and use the left over tea bag to rub the penned area. The pen will be gone and you will have a nice cup of tea to nurse your hangover with.
The non woven fabric of the tea bag is a great scrubber and the catechin within the tea bag reacts with the oils and pigments of the pen to bring them to the surface.
Take your household iron with you to the bowling alley. Use the second set of arrows on the alley and point the iron towards the second arrow on your right as you begin your bowling swing.
Pointing the iron at this particular angle results in having a perfectly straight bowling swing. Once you have mastered this angle, you will only have to account for the weight of the ball.
Make a paste consisting of one part mustard ﾖ yes, mustard ﾖ and two parts flour. Smear the paste over a towel and drape it over your aching back with the paste facing out.
The ingredients of mustard can slightly irritate the skin increasing circulation and causing a light tingle. This historic remedy is also known as a mustard plaster. WARNING: Over exposure to mustard can cause skin irritation. Do not let the paste directly contact your skin.
