Adding vanilla extract to paint (and this week's list of UNhelpful hints)

Factual Questions
1

Upon hearing that I was going to paint my place this spring (as soon as it was warm enough to open up all my windows), somebody suggested that I add a tablespoon of vanilla extract to a gallon of paint to get rid of the smell.

I pointed out that making hazardous paint fumes smell yummy is perhaps not a good idea :rolleyes: but then I wondered about the chemical bonding properties of paint and suspect that adding impurities would only do harm. Anyway, why wouldn’t the paint manufacturers cover up their own odors if it was so easy?

I don’t see the good folks at Duron or Dutch Boy offering up any advice on this matter, so I turned to google and got loads of “helpful hints” web sites. These sites did not instill me with confidence. Here is a short list of goofy hints right next to the vanilla extract idea:

• To remove chewing gum from hair, rub with peanut butter and then wash hair.

Yuck

• Fabric Softener sheets in drawers keep them smelling fresh.

Yeah, if you think fabric softener sheets smell “fresh” to begin with.

• When dying clothes add a little salt, this sets the color in clothes better.

• Perfume lightly sprayed on a cool light bulb makes a lovely scent when turned on.

I’d be afraid the bulb would crack as soon as it got hot.

• To clean artificial flowers-place in a brown bag with salt and shake. (this cleans off dust and dirt without harming flowers)

Yeah, but now they’re all covered with salt!

• Help save on window cleaners by using car washer fluid.

• To help clean mirrors (and makes house smell good) try spray air freshners. It works great and really does make mirrors shine.

This one might be worth something. Lysol does seem to do a good job of cleaning. Never tried this with Glade or other “air fresheners”.

• Pen ink on clothing and carpet: try hairspray and let set for few seconds and then rub with a damp cloth.

Isn’t hairspray essentially glue? Now you’ve got TWO stains to clean up!

• Tomatoes need to be stored with the stems pointed down to last longer.

This is assuming I cut my tomatoes off the vine rather than picking them off. Anyway how can the stems point downward if you leave them on the tomato?

• Candles last longer if placed in freezer for few hours prior to burning.

Huh?

• Add vinegar when boiling eggs, it keeps them from cracking.

I’m gonna hafta call BS here. Don’t the shells crack if the egg is too cold?

• Cold tea is food for houseplants.

But lukewarm tea isn’t?

• Nail polish kept in fridge will stay fresh longer.

Possibly, but I use so little in my recipes that nobody can tell when it’s fresh or stale. :rolleyes:

So, anybody want to take a crack at the vanilla-extract-in-the-paint idea or any others on the list?

2

Man, I thought I was a skeptic! Why do you think these tips are so goofy? When I was a kid in school the school nurse used the peanut butter trick to get gum out of my hair. It worked just fine.

3

By nail polish “staying fresh” they mean it won’t get clumpy like nail polish tends to do when it’s old and starting to dry out inside the bottle.

Cleaning pen ink with hairspray isn’t creating another mess. Hairspray is incredibly easy to wash out of clothing. If it created stains people wouldn’t put it on their heads and thus get it all over their shoulders and clothing.

4

It sounds goofy, but hairspray does remove ink. It’s about the only thing that will.

I remember when Consumer Reports did a big special about removing stains and announced that nothing could get out ink. Not long after they had to retract that, as letters poured in telling them to use hairspray. They used it, and it worked.

5

As far as I can see, all of these have sound scientific explanations

The one I think is a bit silly is the one about

• Help save on window cleaners by using car washer fluid.

I presume that this means windscreen washing solution and as far as I know it isn’t free and you would need to use far more to clean your windows than you ever would in your car. So while you would, per se, save on window cleaners, you would certainly spend more than the balance on windscreen washing solution

Having said that, though if windscreen washing solution is free where you live, then I stand corrected and wil have to ask you to tell me again why you have any objections whatsoever to any of these hints?

6

Boy, you’d really love Heloise.

Worst. Hints. Ever.

7

I’ve been soaking clothes in cold salt water to set the color for years. Don’t be dissin’ my mama’s advice!

8

Vanilla extract is mainly water and ethanol (about 70/30) so I doubt that a small ammount would do much to the bonding properties, but that is kind of a WAG. However many vanilla extracts contain caramel color (HMF) to give a consistent brownish color, so I would be more concerned that the extract would change the paint color. Other than that just because it may cover the odor of the fumes, it would not make them any safer to breathe.

9

Actually, table salt can act as a mordant to set dye.
http://www.museumeducation.org/curricula_activity_weaving.html

But the point is that by the time you turn the light on, the alcohol has had a chance to evaporate, leaving only the perfume’s essential oils, which would then vaporize.

No, actually, the salt falls right off.

Actually, what it does is, if an egg does crack, it helps seal it, so the egg white doesn’t continue to leak out and go all over the pot. You add vinegar to the water when you’re poaching eggs for the same reason–it helps to set the white.

They’re just saying “cold tea” to keep you from enthusiastically pouring a pot of boiling hot tea into the philodendron and then getting annoyed when it kills the plant.

Things that are warm evaporate and dry out faster than things that are cool. If you keep the nail polish cool, the solvent doesn’t evaporate as fast.

I’ve never actually tried the “add vanilla extract to paint” thing, but I doubt whether it would work with turpentine-based oil paints. The smell of those, IMO, would overwhelm even a whole bottle of vanilla extract. Similarly useless, I think, would be the other hints for cutting down on paint odor, like putting the cut halves of onion, or small bowls of vinegar, around the room.

However, I bet that it would work with latex paints, as they have such a slight odor anyway, so it’s possible that somewhere along the line, someone who did object to the smell of latex paint discovered that you could put a couple of drops of vanilla extract into the paint and have your room smell like vanilla when you were done, instead of like latex paint, and then that factoid got repeated widely as applying indiscriminately to “paint” period.

10

Ummmm… FWIW I am a Professional housepainter and have used the Vanilla trick many times. We generaly use a tablespoon per gallon. Do not use artifical vanilla flavorings. The real thing only! Also it will vary as to the strength of vanilla. Some brands are stronger than others. Mind you of course this trick only works well with latex paint. The stuff, seems not to mix as well with an oil based paint.

11

This one was interesting, so I just popped into the bathroom to try it. I used Renusit Crisp Cotton air freshner. It was sort of foamy and stayed in place really well. When I started rubbing it off with a paper towel, the whole mirror got all cloudy and gooky looking.

“Oh, great,” I thought, “I bet my girlfriend is gonna be real pleased to hear the ‘it was an experiment’ excuse again.”

But then the cloudyness just sort of evaporated away, leaving a clean and april-fresh bathroom mirror.

Check plus on this one. Worked for me.

12

I don’t see any that are necessarily wrong. To mention a few thet haven’t been defended yet:

Candles last longer if placed in freezer for few hours prior to burning.
They may burn more slowly, and/or be less likely to drip, since the wax will melt more slowly.

Help save on window cleaners by using car washer fluid.
The issue here would be how much does car washer fluid cost per fluid volume compared with window cleaner.

Fabric Softener sheets in drawers keep them smelling fresh.
OK, I think they smell awful, too, but if you’ve got them in the first place, presumably you do like the smell.

13

Car windshield washer fluid is lots cheaper. You can get a gallon of the blue stuff for under a buck, often. A quart of Windex costs much more.

14

Shaving cream does a fine job of cleaning mirrors. Shoot some on and polish off with a towel.

15

I’ve heard that setting a chopped up onion in a freshly painted room will absorb the smell. Of course, then you have to deal with the onion smell…

16

With regard to fingernail polish, I would think the very dry environment of the refrigerator would cancel out the coolness aspect. Anyway, the cap is on whether it’s stored on the vanity or the fridge, so why should it matter?

I plan on trying out the windshield fluid idea. It does seem cheaper especially since they tell you to dilute the stuff before pouring it into your car’s fluid tank. 99¢ a gallon beats $2.39 a pint.

I still don’t see how frozen candles last longer. Isn’t wax the fuel? Is the wax doesn’t melt as quickly, wouldn’t the candle just be much harder to burn?

I didn’t think tea had any nutritional value for humans; what’s in it that’s food for a plant?

17

I’ve tried the sliced onion in a painted room. It doesn’t eliminate the odor, but it does seem to make it more tolerable. Worth a try.

18

Here’s a link from the gardenweb FAQs on using tea, but that seems to mostly for starting seeds. Here’s a thread there about Chamomile tea. And of course compost tea is well-known, but you don’t want to drink it. I couldn’t find anything about using regular black tea as a fertilizer.

19

A candle burns rather like an oil lamp; instead of a pool of oil, the wick is fed by a small puddle of molten wax. The supply of molten wax is replenished by the heat of the flame. Presumably a freezing-cold candle will melt reluctantly, and the puddle will be a small one.

There is another problem addressed by freezing the candle. Beeswax candles, in particular, soften in warm weather and warm houses, and once standing on end, will bend or lean over, a process hastened by the heat of the flame. A freezing-cold candle will not have this problem.

20

A candle is made up of two parts:
[ul][li] an absorbant wick[/li][li] wax for fuel[/ul][/li]
The wick needs to be absorbant so that the wax can be drawn up it by the heat of the flame. The heat of the flame causes a wax vapor, which is what burns. The vaporizing wax in turn cools the wick and protects it from being burned up. Paraffin wax will burn on its own but only at very high temperatures. Cold wax will cause the wax to flow upward slower and therefore the candle will last longer.

:smiley: [sup]These are such good suggestions, I think Attrayant should periodically post more.[/sup]