10 Surprising and Clever Uses for Bar Soap Around Your Home
Bar soap, a humble household item, often relegated to the confines of our bathrooms, can surprisingly do more than just keep us clean. Here are some unexpected yet brilliant uses for bar soap around the house that you probably don't know!
1. Mirror Defogger
A bar of soap can be a handy tool to keep your bathroom mirrors from fogging up during a hot shower. Simply rub a dry bar of soap lightly over the surface of the mirror and then buff it off with a clean, dry cloth. The thin soap layer will prevent fog from settling, ensuring you have a clear reflection even in steamy conditions. This trick is not only convenient but also a clever way to use something as simple as bar soap to make your daily routine a bit easier.
Image credit: organizationjunkie.com
2. Marking a Hemline
Soap can be used to mark a hemline on fabric. It washes out easily, and you don’t have to worry about any residue.
3. Lubricate Sticky Drawers and Windows
Wooden drawers or windows that stick can be easily remedied by rubbing a dry bar of soap on the tracks. This acts as a lubricant, making them open and close smoothly.
4. Protect Garden from Pests
Grating a bar of unscented soap and sprinkling it around your garden can help keep pests at bay. The smell and taste are deterrents for many garden critters.
Image credit: happiestcamper.com
5. Pin and Needle Lubricant
If you sew, running your pins and needles through a bar of soap makes them glide through fabric more easily.
6. Relieve Itchy Bug Bites
Rubbing a moist bar of soap gently over a bug bite can temporarily relieve itching. The soap film helps soothe the itch.
7. Prevent Foggy Glasses
If you wear glasses, you know the struggle of them fogging up when you move from cold to warm environments. Rubbing a dry bar of soap on the lenses and then buffing it off can create a fog-preventive layer.
8. Detect Gas Leaks
By creating a soapy solution and spreading it on suspected gas line areas, you can detect gas leaks – bubbles will form at the leak point.
9. Scent Sachets
Placing bars of your favorite scented soap in drawers, closets, or suitcases can keep your belongings smelling fresh.
10. Loosen a Stuck Zipper
Rubbing a dry bar of soap over the teeth of a stuck zipper can help it glide more smoothly.
Implementing these creative uses for bar soap not only maximizes its utility but also aligns with a more sustainable approach to everyday living. It's all about looking at common items in a new light and finding innovative ways to extend their usefulness. That's what we love to do at Simplify!
Comments
Join the conversation
So now Proctor and Gamble is writing? 🙄 Should have expected it after all the "use Vaseline for EVERYTHING" oil industry writers.......
I must really be behind on current ideals or maybe the definition of “WOKE” isn’t fully understood by some. Maybe I am the one that needs enlightenment…Can ANYONE tell me how a bar of soap represents anything close to the definition of WOKE..? Maybe I’m missing something….
************************************************************************
WokeFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. [1] Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States. [2][3][4]
The phrase stay woke has been present in AAVE since the 1930s. In some contexts, it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid-20th century by Lead Belly and, post-millennium, by Erykah Badu.
The term woke gained further popularity in the 2010s. Over time, it became increasingly connected to matters beyond race such as gender and identities perceived as marginalized. During the 2014 Ferguson protests, the phrase was popularized by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans. After the term was used on Black Twitter, woke was increasingly used by white people, who often used it to signal their support for BLM; some commentators criticized this usage as cultural appropriation. The term became popular with millennials and members of Generation Z. As its use spread internationally, woke was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.
By 2020, the term became a sarcastic pejorative among many on the political right and some centrists in Western countries, targeting various leftist and progressive movements. Woke was seen as offensive by commentators who felt it disparaged advocates of identity and race-related ideologies. Subsequently, terms like woke-washing and woke capitalism emerged to criticize those using social or political causes for financial or political gain, rather than sincere commitment, a phenomenon often referred to as " performative activism"