# Good Housekeeping-esque tips that have never worked, ever, for anyone. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 12, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518 "2012-10-12T15:13:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/41 "2012-10-17T05:53:55Z")
> [@Tarwater](#): > > - And also because I jumped out of the shower one morning, got dressed, grabbed my shirt from the bathroom, and sprinted out the door without turning the shower off. I had left it on while I was getting dressed, just to press the shirt a little better. It was only later that night, after coming up from the subway and looking at my apartment window and seeing that it was totally opaque with steam, that I realized what I had done. The scene in the bathroom, after the shower had been blasting heated water for ten hours, is beyond my ability to describe. Ten hours? You must have the water heater of the gods. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/42 "2012-10-17T15:02:28Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Ten hours? You must have the water heater of the gods. Or an on-demand water heater, combi boiler or whatever. Ours would have no trouble with that. We would have trouble with the next gas bill though. Although not nearly as much trouble as the sheetrock dissolving like papier mache would cause. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/43 "2012-10-17T15:17:12Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > Those hints work. The one that was completely, TOTALLY whack was: > “If you have no whipped cream, substitute beaten egg whites mixed with mashed banana.” > > _barf_ Speaking of substitution hints, I have a cookbook that states, with what as near as I can tell is a straight face, that if you lack 2 eggs, you can simply substitute 3 egg whites. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Famous\_Burrito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_famous_burrito/32/3954_2.png) [@El\_Famous\_Burrito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Famous_Burrito)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/44 "2012-10-17T19:31:56Z")
**alice\_in\_wonderland** : That’s the good fight! The wrinkle-release-in-the-steamy-bathroom thing must be THE biggest fake housekeeping tip in circulation. It’s a complete fiction as far as I can tell! I’ve considered starting this exact thread several times before. When I saw your headline, I knew immediately that I would post the steamy bathroom lie, but then I saw you were ahead of me. How do I explain **Tarwater** , **Lasciel** , and the others who report success? Most likely they are part of a massive conspiracy involving the utility companies. Or perhaps there are invisible ironing gnomes that sneak into their bathrooms while they’re in the shower. Your “alternative universe where the laws of time and space don’t apply” theory is also promising. Certainly more promising than the idea that hanging a wrinkled shirt in a steamy bathroom would do anything worth a damn. (I’ve gotten legitimately angry over this in the past.) ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/45 "2012-10-17T19:50:35Z")
> [@El\_Famous\_Burrito](#): > > . . . > > (I’ve gotten legitimately angry over this in the past.) . . . “in the past” ?? 😉 I think it may have to do with differing standards for “unwrinkled.” I had a boss who resented the seat belt law because it messed up her perfect shirts. For me, if it could possibly be argued that the shirt is presentable I’m fine with it. The real lie is the “leave it under the mattress over night” plan. That method does not remove any wrinkles, but it does create extreme, garment destroying clefts which can never be straightened. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/46 "2012-10-17T20:39:44Z")
First, steaming a garment in the bathroom won’t release hard wrinkles. If you dried the clothes on the high setting and then immediately shoved them into a basket, cramming them down, then the wrinkles will set hard. Those wrinkles are going to require spending some quality time with an iron and some fabric sizing/starch to get out, IF they will come out at all. Second, the fabric will make a big difference. Linen seems to wrinkle just from the passage of time, even though you had it professionally cleaned and ironed and it’s been hanging on a hanger ever since. Third, it’s going to depend on how picky you are about wrinkles. I figure that my clothes are going to wrinkle up a bit when I move around in them, just by standing and walking and sitting. I don’t demand a perfectly smooth surface. So a bathroom steam treatment usually works, although sometimes I find that I have to take an iron to the hemline, because it folds up and WON’T come down again without being ironed. ---
**Author:** ![Shecky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Shecky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shecky)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/47 "2012-10-18T13:48:43Z")
Heat vinegar (sometimes it says with dishsoap) in a metal coffee pot to remove stains. This is completely false. Utterly and completely. I boiled that bitch for close to 30 minutes and got nothing. What DOES work, however, is using one of those dishwasher pod things put inside the pot and then pouring boiling water into it. Cleaned it so shiny, I thought it was new! ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/48 "2012-10-18T19:21:48Z")
Vinegar will remove mineral deposits, which are sometimes mistaken for stains. However, vinegar isn’t a cleaning agent. It’s a mild acid, which also (as I noted) removes mineral deposits. I have hard water, and I DO run vinegar through my coffee maker, not for the stains, but to get out the mineral deposits, and it works very well for that purpose. The coffee maker will work a bit better and the coffee will taste better after I do this. It will still have stains on it, though, if it had stains on it before. Generally I just put the carafe and the plastic coffee holder into the dishwasher, and it comes clean. I don’t drink coffee and neither does my husband, but my daughter does, so we have a coffee maker that we use when she visits. If you don’t like the smell of vinegar, though, I’ll warn you, you won’t like the smell of warm vinegar any better. Heloise (the first one) used to promote the idea that vinegar, baking soda, and nylon net could solve a lot of household problems. Vinegar and baking soda are cheap, at least, and generally won’t harm things. Nylon net is (or was) just a homemade scrubby, and again, it generally won’t harm things when it’s used to scrub. But those items won’t fix everything. Incidentally, if you want to remove tea or coffee stains, you might try some of those tablet denture cleaners, which are designed to remove such stains. I’ve used them in a lot of teapots that looked like they would never get clean. ---
**Author:** ![Yarster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7c8e57/32.png) [@Yarster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yarster)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518/49 "2012-10-19T18:50:47Z")
Not sure if this counts but my Dad and uncles telling every awkward, mediocre looking teen boy in the family (including me) back in the day “Son, you should ask out the prettiest girl in class, because everyone is intimidated by her and she doesn’t know she’s pretty, so she’s never getting asked out on dates…” Yeah, that has never happened anywhere, ever, in the history of the universe. It’s yet to be determined whether these older males in my family did this just to screw with us. Now that I’m happily married, I do NOT pass this advice on to my nephews… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-housekeeping-esque-tips-that-have-never-worked-ever-for-anyone/637518.md?page=2)