Unusual Uses for Baby Wipes: Shoes, Screens & Faces

Is it really possible to clean a computer screen with a baby wipe? That's one of the tips provided by a reader of Real Simple magazine. I have not tried that trick, but I have used baby wipes for other cleanup duties:



I've swiped floor, counter tops and faces (to remove make-up and grime) with baby wipes. In fact, some stylists on South Beach modeling shoots have used baby wipes to clean up cosmetics and clothing.

And when traveling -- cars, trains and planes -- wipes are great for quick and emergency cleanups when water and soap are not available. Likewise, during hurricane season when we have lost access to running water, wipes have been great for hands and faces.



Here's a list from Woman's World:

Shoeshine: A swipe with a baby wipe will "clean and shine" a leather shoe.

Make-up remover: A cleanser and a moisturizer all-in-one. (Works great for me).

Sunburn relief: Pat down burnt skin with a baby wipe. ( I would use those with aloe, a plant that is great for burns)

Laundry help: Use a wipe to blot away deodorant marks on a garment.

Banish crayon marks: Wipes are great for removing crayons (and scuff marks) from laminate surfaces, tiles and walls. (I've had success with this tip.)

Screen saver: Like the reader from Real Simple, Woman's World also claims that baby wipes are great for cleaning dust from "TVs, stereos and computers."
source: July 17, 2007 issue.

Meanwhile, the folks at RDLiving.com -- the online version of Reader's Digest -- believe that wipes are great for cleaning computer keyboards:

"Clean your PC keyboard

Periodically shaking out your PC's keyboard is a good way to get rid of the dust and debris that gathers underneath and in between the keys. But that's just half the job.

Use a baby wipe to remove the dirt, dried spills, and unspecified gunk that builds up on the keys themselves. Make sure to turn off the computer or unplug the keyboard before you wipe the keys.

--Extraordinary Uses for Wipes

The rest of the list provides other interesting applications. My favorite: dried out, but fairly clean wipes can be used as furniture dust cloths.

Thriftyfun.com also has a great thread with comments about unusual uses for baby wipes.

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After 4th of July Picnics: Odd Uses for Paper Plates

With the yearly celebration of the Fourth of July, barbecues are fired up across America, and that American cuisine is typically served on lots of paper plates. However, after the food and the fireworks, many of us are stuck with a stack of paper plates! From Woman's World magazine, intern Maya Jaffe has pulled together a list of unusual uses for paper plates. Other links--including a tip about making index cards from plates -- are below.


Microwave food shields: To limit the amount of food that gets splattered when using a microwave oven, place a paper plate, on top of the food while heating up a meal or snack.

China Security- When stacking, packing or storing fragile China, place paper plates in between the dishes in order to guard the fine porcelain.

Garbage Liner- Place paper plates at the bottom of a trash can. Cut and shape the plate to fit the bin.

Paint Ring Prevention- Place a paper plate under a paint can to save the surface it’s placed on from a paint ring.

Disposable Cutting Board- Eliminate messy cutting boards by using a paper plate. This step works very well if you are in a hurry and the cutting board is dirty. By using a paper plate, you can cut an entire salad and when you're done, so is the plate. I use this tip all the time when preparing for a family gathering or entertaining.

--written by Frugal Duchess Intern Maya Jaffe
source: Woman's World 7/03/2007 issue

Odd uses for paper pates from Living a Better Life: 51 Money-Saving Uses for Ordinary Kitchen Items

"1. Place two plates together, edge to edge, fill with beans or rice, staple the edges together, let children paint and decorate for a fun musical toy.

2. Use as a cover for food to keep warm.

3. Place ½ of a plate on top of a full sized plate,
edge to edge, staple edges to create a letter holder. Great for kid's
Valentines."

Paper plates are also good for Make-it-Yourself index cards, according to RDLiving.com, (the online version of Readers Digest) which offers these tips for alternative uses of paper plates.


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Wild Uses for Paper Clips: Tip Tuesday Report

As I organize the clutter in my desk drawers, I expect to find enough paper clips to stock a small office supply store. Conveniently, I have found several tips for dealing with paper clips, which "were patented by Samuel B. Fay in 1867," according to this snippet of history from Early Office Museum.

Here are a few of my favorite Paper Clip Tips from a past issue of Woman's World:

• Snack Saver: Don't pay extra for upscale food clips. Large paper clips work fine for sealing up chips and cereal. Just fold the bag and clip.


• Place Saver: Paper clips are great for marking off frequently used phone numbers. This tip means that you'll spend less time in the phone book. I also use paper clips to save my place in magazines and books My husband does not, however, recommend paper clips as book markers because clips can ruin pages with indentations and/or rust marks.


• Photo Finish: I love to place family pictures and postcards on the bulletin board near our computer desk. But I hate the push-pin holes in snapshots and cards. The Woman's World Solution: Dangle paper clips from the push-pins and then attach the photos to the paper clips.


• Zipper Repair: A bright paper clip can be used to replace a missing zipper pull.

Here are 101 Uses for a Paper Clip: an excellent list of 125 uses. I've featured the first 10. (see below) I've actually used paper clips to stitch together falling hemlines (tip # 1). This trick works best if the hem is floor-length, which is and not as visible as a knee-length hem repair.

• hem holder
• cigar filter unstopper
• spray bottle unclogger
• eye glass repair
• hair barrette
• zipper tab
• clean fingernails
• Xmas ornament holder
• unclog Elmer's glue bottle
• calendar holder" Source: --101 Uses for a Paper Clip
  

Wikipedia offers an excellent list of low-tech and high-tech uses for paper clips:

"Paper clips can be bent into a crude but effective lock pick and can be used as in place of a q-tip to clean ones ear (though this should probably be done for you rather than by you). A paper clip is also a useful accessory in computing: the metal wire can be unfolded with a little force. Several devices call for a very thin rod to push a recessed button which the user might only rarely need. This is seen on most CD-ROM drives as an "emergency eject" should the power fail; also on early disk drives (including the early Macintosh). Some Palm PDAs advise the use of a paper clip to reset the device. The track ball can be removed from early Logitech pointing devices using a paperclip as the key to the bezel. A paper clip bent into a "U" can be used to start an ATX PSU without connecting it to a Motherboard (connect the green to a black on the Motherboard header). One or more paperclips can make a loopback device for a RS232 interface (or indeed many interfaces). A paperclip could be installed in a Commodore 1541 disk-drive as a flexible head-stop. Paperclips have been used (unsafely) to replace fuses."

There are many other uses for paper clips including educational recycling projects for kids.

Likewise, The Paper Clips Project was a school program in which students from a Southern school collected paper clips as a special memorial to Holocaust victims.

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Frugal Cures for Junk Drawers: My Latest Column in the Miami Herald

My desk is a beautiful antique with a scary feature. For instance, whenever I slide open the main drawer, I expect rabid dust bunnies and crazed paperclips to attack me. It's a surreal 3-D version of the child's game: rock-paper-scissors-shoot. Frankly, I've been shot down by clutter.

After endless papercuts, I've found several frugal solutions for organizing my junk drawers. Those solutions sparked my latest column in the Sunday Miami Herald.

Here's a snippet of the column.

A common indoor pest plagues many homes in South Florida, namely the ''junk drawer.'' Our catch-all drawers contain everything from old pay stubs to misshapen paper clips. And like ants on a countertop, junk drawers multiply in kitchens, home offices and recreation rooms.

Fortunately, there are many simple and frugal solutions to the junk drawer problem. Here are some suggestions from Susanne Phelps, a Hollywood-based professional organizer (www.cluttertamer.net):

By using small boxes from around the home and the sectioned trays from jewelry boxes and tool kits, it's possible to organize the clutter. Phelps offered wonderful suggestions. My favorite part: I don't have to spend a lot for fancy containers and boxes to get my house in order.

• Say goodbye to the junk drawer. You're setting yourself up for disorganization by even calling it a junk drawer. Every drawer in your home should have a specific purpose.

Here's the link to the full column.

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I Washed My Tiles With Cola: A Follow-Up Report

Last week, I wrote about unusual uses for cola. In that item, I mentioned how some people use cola to clean tiles, jewelery and toilet bowls. Well I poured a can of Diet Coke w/Splenda around my home. I accomplished a lot of with a 50-cent can of soda that someone had given us. Here are the results of my money-saving clean-up efforts:

1) Cola on glossy white tiles: Someone or something (maybe the dog) left sticky grease spots on our glossy white tile floor. No problem. I spilled cola on a sticky tile and let the fizzy drink sit for about 10 minutes.

Following the cola clean-up directions, I cleaned up the mess with soapy water and paper towels. It works. The area of the tile with cola came clean faster. The grease slid off the tile quite easily, but the cleanup required more effort on the sections that did not have cola.

On the uncola sections, the soapy paper towel slid around without picking up all of the dirt and the cleanup required more effort than the cola-soaked areas with the same amount of grime.

2. The Toilet Bowl: Worked pretty well. Let the cola sit for 40-60 minutes, then cleaned.

3. Jewelry: An old dangling earring (steel or nickel) from the 1980s actually looked shiny after soaking in cola for about 10 minutes. Likewise, a pair of gold post earrings also gleamed after a 10-minute dip in diet cola.

4. Rust stains: I was able to remove some, but not all, of the rust stains on an outdoor corian tabletop. I scrubbed the stains with a piece of aluminum foil dipped in diet coke. This routine also lifted a rust stain from a wrought iron outdoor chair.

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Toothpaste for Zits & Stains: How I Fought a Zit, but Attracted Ants: A Tuesday Tip

Toothpaste does more than whiten teeth. Other uses include zit-zapping powers and stain removal. In this week's Tuesday Tip post, I'm reporting on unusual applications for toothpaste, including the money-saving suggestions that I have personally tested.

Stain Removal: I was a bit skeptical when I read about this use of toothpaste in First for Women magazine. Here's the tip from the magazine:

"Brush away ink stains

The mild abrasives in toothpaste can remove permanent marker stains on cloth, wood or linoleum. Squeeze a dab on a soft cloth and gently rub in a circular motion on the stain. Let dry, then rinse with cool water." --First For Women magazine

My experience: I was interested in this tip because as a writer who traffics in pens and markers, I'm always getting ink on my clothing. I call it my Murphy's Pen Law: The more expensive the garment, the more indelible the ink.

So I wanted to try this tip in order to save money and clothes. As a test, I marked up my son's white school uniform shirt. (Just two small blue pen marks at near the bottom hem.) Next, I rubbed out the mark with toothpaste on my finger. I did three things wrong:

1) I used my finger to rub out the stain instead of the soft cloth recommendation. I switched to the cloth, which worked better.

2) I rubbed out the stain, but a flyer for Dell computers was on the table top surface. The ink stain faded, but the underside of the shirt was filled with newspaper ink. Fortunately, that mark also washed out.

3) I used pink toothpaste because I did not have white paste. Unfortunately, the directions also state:

"Be sure to use white paste --blue or green gels may cause discoloration."

That's true-- the stain faded, but the shirt had a little pale pink spot from the paste.

The Good News:
The pink spot (100% removed) and the blue ink (95% removed) faded from the shirt when I rinsed the area with cool water. I think I would have had better results if I had completely followed the directions and let the paste/ ink mark dry before the cool rinse. Also, I agree that white paste is best for stain removal.

2. The Zit Zapper. I have read that models love to treat pimples and blemishes with a dab of toothpaste. The rationale: the cavity-fighting, cleansing formula in toothpaste also fights zits. So I tried it.

My experience: As a day treatment, my skin seemed to improve from a dab of toothpaste on a random pimple. My face tingled and I enjoyed using a Super Model beauty tip.

But as a night treatment, I will never again apply toothpaste to my face!!! That's a recipe for disaster in a warm climate, where smalls pests like ants are attracted to the sweet flavor of toothpaste.

I woke up in the middle of the night, when I felt an ant (maybe ants!!) crawling on my face. I washed my face and slept much better.

This report from CBSNews.com features the use of toothpaste to clean gold and silver. The information from the CBS report came from WackyUses.com

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Frugal Uses for Cola: Tuesday Tip

I've used cola to settle upset stomachs. But that's just one of several unusual uses for a popular beverage. The carbonic acid in cola is good for cleaning many items, including jewelery. In fact, for a science project my kid's teacher instructed the class to drop different items into cola to watch the change. A dirty penny, for example, was transformed into a shiny coin during the exercise.

Likewise, from beautifying bathrooms to cleaning tiles, cola has a variety of unusual uses. Over the next week, I will test out some of the stranger tips and report back next week during my Tuesday Tip feature. Here are a few of the suggestions, I've collected from First for Women and other sources.

Dirty Floors & Bathrooms:

1. Spill out a can of cola on a tile floor and take special aim at the grout between the tiles. Let the soda sit for about 10 minutes and then mop up the floor with a sponge filled with soap.

2. Apply a half cup of cola to grease spills and oil stains on a garage floor. Let the cola sit for a quarter of an hour. Hose down with warm water.

"The soda's carbonic acid seeps into the porous concrete and dissolves embedded dirt."--First For Women Magazine.

3. For the toilet bowl: Pour a can of soda into the the toilet. Let the soda sit for 60 minutes. Then swirl and scrub the bowl with a brush.

"The soft drink contains citric acid, a chemical compound that filters into the pores of the porcelain bowl and dissolves the dirt and rust that cause ugly spots and stains."
--First For Women Magazine.

4. Anti-Rust

"One unusual use for Coke is as a rust-control substance — the phosphoric acid in Coke converts iron oxide to iron phosphate, and as such can be used as an initial treatment for corroded iron and steel objects being renovated, etc."-- Answers.com

This list also has a variety of uses for cola, including cleanups for the car, the bathroom and greasy clothes.

Likewise, HGTV (Home & Gardens TV) offers it own tips for cola in this list:

"TIPical Mary Ellen host Mary Ellen Pinkham points out various ways to use
cola around the home.

• Substitute cola for water in a cake recipe and in the icing.
• Need a quick and easy marinade? Soak a ham overnight in cola. This will
  leave the meat nice and tender.
• Make a cola fruit salad. Fill a bowl with citrus fruit and pour cola over
  it.
• Use cola as a substitute for one cup water in gelatin mixes. Make cherry
  cola-flavored gelatin by mixing cola with cherry gelatin.
• Fill a spray bottle with cola, and spray on a window or mirror to remove
  grease buildup.
• Crumple a piece of aluminum foil and dip it in cola. Rub the foil on chrome
  to remove rust spots.
• Loosen a rusted bolt with the help of cola. Soak a rag in it, then apply to
  the bolt. It should loosen in just minutes." --source: HGTV

Coca-Cola trivia:

A drugstore owner from Georgia originally sold coca-cola as a cure-all during the late 1800s:

Coca-Cola was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass. [John Stith Pemberton, the drink's inventor,] claimed Coca-Cola cured myriad diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence.--
Answers.com

There are also several urban myths about Coca-cola, Answers.com (linked above) highlights some of the myths.
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Frugal Burglar Alarm & Other Practical Uses for Bubble Wrap: A Tuesday Tip

My new Dell laptop arrived yesterday. (Thanks M&D for the interest-free financing!) I was pleased, but faced one major disappointment. The packaging did not include any bubble wrap for my amusement.

Bubble wrap has a wide assortment of unusual uses. The authors of the Bubble Wrap Book feature these suggestions:

"Bubble Wrap Burglar Alarm
Make a burglar alarm for your home. Lay Bubble Wrap on the floor inside your doors and windows. When a thief breaks in and walks across the floor, the "pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop" will alert you to the intruder.

Bubblehead
Improvise a football or motorcycle helmet. Wrap massive quantities of Bubble Wrap around your head and seal in place with clear packaging tape (or duct tape). If Bubble Wrap can protect a hand-painted egg shipped from Czechoslovakia across the Atlantic, it can protect your head when it hits asphalt.
CAUTION: The specific amount of Bubble Wrap required to provide adequate protection has not yet been determined.Bubble Wrap Insect Repellent Prevent mosquito bites on arms and legs by covering your extremities in Bubble Wrap. When mosquitoes do try to bite you, the Bubble Wrap bubble will pop and the tiny explosion of air will send the mosquito spiraling through the air.

Sweet Dreams
Sleeping while camping can be a real pain in the back, unless you are carrying a lightweight six-foot roll of Bubble Wrap as a mat to place under your sleeping bag. Or fold a twelve-foot-long piece of Bubble Wrap in half and duct tape the sides to make the padded sleeping bag of your dreams.
CAUTION: If you are sleeping on the beach, high tide may cause you to float out to sea.


Bubble Wrap Instead of Cash
Impress your date by padding your wallet with a piece of Bubble Wrap behind your money. It will look like you have a lot more money than you actually do. Or just impress your date with the fact that you always carry around a trusty piece of Bubble Wrap. source: The Bubble Wrap® Book, from HarperPerennial. It is penned by those geniuses of alternative uses for everyday products: Joey Green, the Spam Guy and Tim, the Duct Tape Guy.)"

A recent issue of Woman's World (WW) Magazine:

1. Pack or Wrap Clothes: Folded in bubble wrap, clothes stay wrinkle free.

2. Pottery Protection: Pottery and china dishes get dinged up when plates are stacked or unstacked from the cupboard. But we can create layers of protection by placing custom-cut sheets of bubble wrap between each dish.

3. Anti-rolling materials: Shelves lined with bubble wrap keep sports balls from rolling away.

4. Fruit Screen Saver: This is my favorite tip from the magazine. WW recommends lining the refrigerator fruit/veggie bin with bubble wrap. The plastic bubbles will keep the fruits and veggies bruise free. Change as needed.


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An Ode to Hot Water: Weed Killer, Anti-Itch & Frugal Spa Treatment

For a Tuesday Tip, I can't say enough about a humble cup of hot water. It's cheap. It's efficient and it has many uses. From DIY spa treatments to low-tech weed-killing applications, hot water has an assortment of money-saving uses. Here's my own collection of hot water tips, with a caution to be careful.


Candle wax cleanup: I light candles every Friday, just before sundown and cleaning up wax from my candle sticks is very easy with hot water. Silver, crystal and brass candlesticks come clean when I run them under hot water for a few minutes. The soft wax just lifts off. Really easy cleanup.

Anti-Itch treatment: My husband, who is a really outdoorsy camping guy, tells me this works. Dab a bug bite with hot water on a Q-tip. This little treatment, he says, draws out bug juice from the bite and provides itch relief.

Me: You sure this works?
Husband: Yeah. I've tried it.
Me: Well, I'm going to say you said it--Thanks


Weed-killing water: I picked this tip up from an anti-pesticide website that's promoting some tool that uses hot water to kill weeds. Allegedly, a small town somewhere in the U.S. uses this technique:

Here's how it works:

"a steady stream of near-
boiling water that kills weeds by melting the waxy outer coating of
their leaves."

This is the link to the full story.


Spa Treatment: When I used to pay for a series of facials at an upscale beauty spa in Manhattan, I really thought I was saving lots of money. If I purchased four facials (a mini-series,) for about $300, the per-facial cost dropped down a lot. I'm serious. If I skipped four meals, the facials felt free.

But then they steamed my face. With a thick fluffy towel over my head, I sat over a large bowl of herbal tea for like 20 minutes. That was about 30 percent of the treatment. (A big Swedish woman tortured my pores for the rest of the treatment)

And even during the height of my Plastic Diva Days, a little voice in my head whispered: "Hey Girlfriend, you can do this yourself. Save the facial money and go shopping!"

The steam-spa facial was easy to duplicate. Insert gourmet herbal tea bag (value: 10 to 15 cents) into a hot pan of water. Go to the linen closet for a large thick towel. Stand over tea-bag mix (chamomile and mint work great) with covered head. Sweat for 15 minutes, then rinse off glowing face with cool water.

And speaking of tea, a cup of tea (green, mint or other herbal flavors) is very relaxing and just cost pennies at home. Hot water can also be used for home brewed French Press coffee made from ground beans or a cup of instant soup. I skip the MSG, by purchasing small packets of organic miso soup powder at health food stores.

Oh and one final tip from the kitchen crew (my husband): For easy-peel tomatoes, just run the fruit under the water, and the skin melts off with a dull knife.
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Tip Tues: Beyond Lunch; Other Uses for Brown Paper Bags

Today the brown bags are filled with a slice of pizza, a red organic apple and a granola bar. That's the brown-bag lunch menu for my kids today. We're brown bag people because we've lost way too many lunch boxes. I'm frugal to a point: When the hard realities of life battle against my frugal/green bent, sometimes I opt for practical, albeit costlier solutions. Therefore, I have conceded the battle over the lunch box.

But beyond lunch, there are lots of things we can do with a brown bag. Alternative uses include: carpet cleaners, mop cleaners, book covers and of course, the rainy day, mom-I-am-bored puppets, fashioned from decorated brown bags.

I've collected a few unusual brown-bag uses from Reader's Digest. Here's the link to the brown bag article.


Meanwhile, a past issue of Woman's World also contains a few good ideas for brown bag uses.

1. Clean your carpet: If you have a wax drip on your carpet, cover the drip with a bit of brown paper bag, then zip back and forth over bag with a warm iron (forget the steam). The heat from the iron should melt the candle wax, which will be absorbed by the brown paper bag.

2. Scrap paper: I would be embarrassed if any of my editors requested to see my notes. I take notes on anything: old envelopes, recycled paper and old magazine pages. I should try brown paper bags. Woman's World recommends cutting up paper bags and using the scraps to write grocery lists, daily to-do list and other notes.

3. Book Covers. I did this when I was little. You need the old-school big paper bags from the grocery store to cover most textbooks.

4.Masks: Paper bags of all sizes can be used for masks, costumes and all sorts of inside-the-house/outside-the-box activities for kids.

source: Women's World.

And here's a snippet from the Reader's Digest article:

Dust off your mops
Dust mops make it a breeze to get up the dust balls and pet hair around your home, but how do you get the stuff off your mop? Place a large paper bag over the mop head; use a piece of string or a rubber band to keep it from slipping off. Now give it several good shakes (a few gentle bumps wouldn't hurt either). Lay the mop on its side for a few minutes to let the dust in the bag settle. Then carefully remove the bag for easy disposal of your dusty dirt.

Make your own wrapping paper
Need to wrap a present in a hurry? You don't have to rush out to buy wrapping paper. Just cut a large paper bag along the seams until it's a flat rectangle. Position it so that any printing is facing up at you, put your gift on top and fold, cut, and tape the paper around your gift. If you wish, personalize your homemade wrapping paper by decorating it with markers, paint, or stickers.


Reuse as gift bags
What to do with those small gift bags with handles favored by most boutiques? Why not use them to package your own gifts? They're ideal for holding items such as bath supplies, jewelry, perfume, and even most books. Simply add some shredded crepe paper, a personalized card, and you're all set.
Source: Reader's Digest

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Tues. Tips: Wax Paper Memories & Other Uses

I remember sandwiches filled with lunch meat or peanut butter & jelly, then wrapped into wax paper and tucked into a tin-note Barbie lunchbox. Wax paper --popular for lunches before sandwiches were ziplocked -- makes me feel nostalgic.

Wax paper has other uses: Instant book covers for school. (Use bright stickers to make the covers more festive.) Wax paper is also great for lining shelves in cupboards or refrigerators. Wax paper will quickly line bureau drawers when you travel. I must be weird, but I don't always like tucking my clothes into some hotel bureau drawers or shelves. But enough of my phobias:

Here are other uses I've collected for wax paper from Reader's Digest.

Perfect Cake Decorating: Create your iced lettering and designs on wax paper (cut into the same size as your cake). Freeze the wax paper for 30 minutes. Next pry and slide the hardened letters and decoration onto the cake.

Other uses for wax paper: instant funnel, quick kitchen clean-up tool, easy bottle uncorker, anti-rust tool and other uses. Here's a link to the complete wax paper list from Reader's Digest.

Meanwhile, the Nov. 14 2006 issue of Woman's World offers these Wax Paper Tips:

*Candle Storage: Tuck candles away in wax paper to prevent scuffs and wear during storage.

*Help for Wet Books: Insert pieces of wax paper between wet pages. This should keep the pages from sticking together while the book dries out.

*Easy Shower Glide: Rub a bit of wax paper on the rod that holds up the shower curtain. This trick will make the curtain glide open and close.
--Source Woman's World.


And of course, as a little girl, I pressed autumn leaves between wax paper sheets. I think I have a lot of memories wrapped in wax paper.
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Tuesday Tip: Strange Uses for Butter

From removing glue to coating pills, there are many unusual uses for butter. As part of my regular Tuesday Tip series, I found the following alternative uses for butter in two sources: Woman's World and Reader's Digest:


*Glue Removal: To take glue from your hands, rub them with butter before washing them down with soap and water.

* Gum from hair: Apply softened butter to the locks. Bubble gum will glide off without a tug-of-war.

*Easy Swallow: Cover pills with butter to help the medicine go down.

*The Cutting Edge: Coat a knife with butter before slicing through sticky items such as dried fruit of a gooey pies.

*Tree Sap Removal: Shaded Parking disaster? Dislodge sticky sap by rubbing on a pat of butter with a micro-fiber cloth or other soft material. Wipe until the butter and the sap are gone. No scratches.

--Source: Woman's World

What about a butter-based dry hair treatment, an anti-mold cheese recipe, emergency shaving cream, or fishy smell removal? Reader's Digest has these alternative butter uses.

My Favorite Tip:

Soothe aching feet
To soothe tired feet, massage them with butter, wrap in a damp, hot towel, and sit for 10 minutes. Your feet will feel revitalized … and they'll smell like popcorn too. -- Reader's Digest