Category: Grub Garage
1. Clear dirt off PCs and electronics
Your computer, printer, fax machine, and other home office gear will work better if you keep them clean and dust-free. Turn off your machine and wash with a mix of equal parts white vinegar and water. Wash with a cloth, not a spray bottle. You can use cotton swabs for tight spaces.
2. Get rid of smoke odor
If you’ve recently burned a steak or can’t get rid of that cigarette smell, remove the lingering smoky odor by placing a shallow bowl about three-quarters full of white or cider vinegar in the room where the scent is strongest. To get the smell out of the air, moisten a cloth and wave it in the air.
3. Wipe away mildew
Use undiluted vinegar to wipe away heavy mildew stains. Mix it with water to clean light mildew stains. You can even use a vinegar mist in a spray bottle to prevent mildew stains from forming in rugs and carpets.
4. Clean chrome and stainless steel
To clean chrome and stainless steel fixtures around your home, apply a light misting of undiluted white vinegar from a recycled spray bottle. Buff with a soft cloth to bring out the brightness.
5. Unglue stickers, decals, and price tags
Don’t you hate when you peel a sticker off of your new furniture or product and it’s still sticky from the glue? Worry no more! Use full-strength white vinegar and gently scrape it off the product. Use an expired credit card to scrape. You can also uses this solution to get glue off of glass, plastic and walls.
6. Brighten up brickwork
Have dingy bricks around your fireplace? Use 1 cup of white vinegar mixed with 1 gallon of warm water to scrub the area. Your bricks will be looking shiny and nice!
7. Revitalize wood paneling
You can also use vinegar to shine up your dull wood paneling. Mix 1 pint warm water with 4 tablespoons white or apple cider vinegar and 2 tablespoons olive oil. Let the mixture soak for a few minutes and then polish.
8. Remove carpet stains
You can lift out many stains from your carpet with vinegar:
For light stains, mix 2 tablespoons salt with ½ cup white vinegar. Rub into the stain, let try and vacuum.
For tough, ground-in dirt and other stains, make a paste of 1 tablespoon vinegar with 1 tablespoon cornstarch, and rub it into the stain using a dry cloth. Let it set for two days, then vacuum.
9. Keep car windows frost-free
Vinegar is a great way to keep frost from forming on your car windows. Spray the outside of your windows with a mixture of 3 parts white vinegar to 1 part water.
10. Refresh your refrigerator
Have you ever smelled a refrigerator that hasn’t been used for a long time? It’s gross! You can freshen up your fridge with a mixture of equal parts white vinegar and water. You can use the solution to wash the interior and exterior of the fridge.
11. Steam-clean your microwave
Fill a bowl with 1 cup water and ¼ cup vinegar. Set the bowl in the microwave and cook on high for 5 minutes. Once the bowl cools down, use the solution to wipe off the walls of the microwave.
12. Disinfect cutting boards
Use full-strength white vinegar to clean wood cutting boards or butcher block countertops. This is a great alternative to dishwasher detergent because it can weaken surfaces and wood fiber. It disinfects against E.coli, salmonella and staphylococcus.
13. Clean china, crystal, and glassware
Have soap spots and dingy spots on your dishes after you put them in the dishwasher? Simply add a few ounces of vinegar to your dishwasher. It will prevent those hard-water stains from showing up.
14. Trap fruit flies
Did you bring home fruit flies from the market? You can make traps for them that can be used anywhere around your house by filling an old jar about halfway with apple cider vinegar. Punch a few holes in the lid, screw it back on, and you’re good to go.
15. Tenderize and purify meats and seafood
Soaking a lean or inexpensive cut of red meat in a couple of cups of vinegar breaks down tough fibers to make it more tender. You can also use vinegar to tenderize seafood steaks. Let the meat or fish soak in full-strength vinegar overnight.
16. Control your dandruff
Can’t wear those black shirts because your dandruff will show? Vinegar to the rescue! After shampooing, rinse your hair with a mixture of 2 cups apple cider vinegar and 2 cups cold water.
17. Ease sunburn and itching
Gently rub a sunburn or rash with cotton balls or a soft cloth soaked with white or cider vinegar. Try to apply this before the sunburn begins to sting. You can use this to help treat insect bites or rashes from poison ivy or poison oak.
18. Clean your eyeglasses
When it’s more difficult to see with your glasses on than it is with them off, it’s a clear indication that they’re in need of a good cleaning. Applying a few drops of white vinegar to your glass lenses and wiping them with a soft cloth will easily remove dirt, sweat, and fingerprints, and leave them spotless. Don’t use vinegar on plastic lenses, however
19. Stop reds from running
Unless you have a fondness for pink-tinted clothing, take one simple precaution to prevent red washable clothes from ruining your wash loads. Soak your new clothes in a few cups of undiluted white vinegar for 10-15 minutes before their first washing. You’ll never have to worry about running colors again! This also works with other bright colors that you worry might run.
20. Speed germination of flower seed
You can get woody seeds, such as moonflower, passionflower, morning glory, and gourds, off to a healthier start by lightly rubbing them between a couple of sheets of fine sandpaper-and soaking them overnight in a solution of 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar and 1 pint warm water. Next morning, remove the seeds from the solution, rinse them off, and plant them.
I moved in to a place with a really smelling fridge, Coffee for a few hours worked so much better.
Interesting ones here. I know we use it to clean at times. It works well, but sure makes the house stanky.
I don't like the smell of vinegar especially the white one but I use it to clean my Kenmore coffee drip machine.
lol This stuff smells like ass! But I use it in my hair with bentonite clay.
agreed. I don't like the smell of it. but it does work with a few of the things you've listed, PinkStrawbery. (don't know your name)
Most of these are true of pretty much any acid really. Any cleaning you need
done can be done with acids that don't smell as bad, but it is great for cleaning
coffee makers and the like. However, it won't tenderize meat. yes, acid breaks
down protein fibers, but a weak acid like vinegar would take weeks to do it.
soaking it overnight would just make your meat taste funny. You can soak meat
in a liquid to give them some more flavor, but that's marinading, not
tenderizing. Short of dropping a steak in hydrofloric acid or something, it ain't
going to get more tender. I'm curious about trapping fruit flies too. Not sure
how that one would work, but I suppose its possible. If its true, it proves that
old saying about catching more flies with honey wrong, doesn't it?
sometimes my grandma drinks the apple cider. But the white vinegar is sometimes used when making pepper sauce but not all people use it. I will write out a recipe and post it here. In my country our peppers are extremely hot.
Yep, great for cleaning out coffee machines, and the residue from the inside of a tea kettle.
Also, run new towels through the washer with about a cup of white vinegar, and no detergent, and it will increase the absorbency of the towels. You only need to do this once. They will not smell of vinegar when the wash is finished!
I learned something interesting about that residue left inside of a teapot.
You're not actually supposed to wash that away. You're supposed to rinse out
the old tea, and that's pretty much it. That residue actually increases the
effectiveness of the teapot. Unless you meant an actual tea kettle, like one you
just use to heat water in, in which case I don't think I know the residue you're
refering too.
But SL, doesn't that depend on what the teapot is made of?
That does work, but only if you're always brewing the same flavor tea. You don't want to just rinse the pot, then try to brew green tea, say, after making cranberry flavored black tea, last time! For cleaning the teapot, I like to use hot water and a little baking soda.
But yes, re the post above, I meant a kettle, for heating water. They can get grubby with sediment if they don't dry quickly enough, or if you regularly leave water in them.
My dad drinks a lot of disgusting instant coffee, so he leaves water in their kettle all the time. I've given my mom the vinegar tip, but she won't try it because she is convinced the kettle will smell like vinegar, after. It won't.
As far as my experience has shown, the flavors like cranberry or what have
you don't really linger. Its more seasoning, like you would find on a cast iron
skillet. It would probably depend on what the teapot is made of though.
I have used many tea pots and such. I just rence and it does not linger any flavors.
the best tea pots are called brown betty's. they come from somewhere in England and are made of a kind of clay that only is from there. never ever ever wash a teapot with soap and water!!!!!!!!! well I mean if it got gross and moldy or something you should. otherwise don't do it!!!!!!! teapots are like castiron cookwear. the more they are used the better the tea tastes.
silver lightning I agree about the meet and vinegar. marinating a cheap cut of meat in Italian dressing can somewhat tenderize it and it tastes bgood too.
another wonderful use for white vinegar is to prevent head lice. once you have 'em it won't work. every time you shampoo, pour 1/4 cup of white vinegar mixed with 3/4 cup of water over your head after you rinsed the shampoo out. as a hair rince it makes the scalp environment less attractive to those nasty little insects.
I never heard of the use of vinegar for headlice but I know of someone using a brand of spray that kills mosquitoes and it worked for them. But I won't try that. To me that is dangerous. I know that it killed all the lice while they were spraying it. They just had to comb it out of the hair and all were gone.
Never has coffee tasted better, than after running vinegar, and then water, through a coffee maker!!!!!
I'm going to try these uses, as they'd benefit me.
Blessings, Sarah