Read a book about repurposing common items. Since the claims for vinegar, etc. often seem fanciful I tend to take these with a grain of salt or two.
The book claims aspirin tablets can be dissolved in water to make a paste. This paste purportedly can be used like a styptic pencil on shaving wounds to slow the flow. It can also be purportedly used to treat athlete’s foot due to claimed antifungal activity.
Similarly, WD-40 was said to be able to help remove bandaids painlessly, revive faded plastic patio furniture, and to help unstick SuperGlue.
The claim about WD-40 helping with Band-aid removal makes sense to me, as I’ve used it to help get rid of sticker residue. It seems it can disolve the adhesive.
I’ve used WD-40 to get grease and adhesives off of skin…just not my skin and I always warned the person their hands were going to smell like WD-40 for the rest of the day.
In many cases, however, if WD-40 works, there’s a good chance something less smelly will as well. Goo-Gone, Naptha, nail polish remover (usually acetone IIRC). Gasoline would work as well, but then you’ll smell like that instead.
Yeah, I buy white vinegar by the gallon and use it for cleaning as well as cooking, but while it has a nice range of uses you do have to watch out for “woo” along with the hacks.
I am guessing the idea behind that is to make a paste with salicylic acid, which does have some uses in medical care, like dissolving the top layer of skin. There are a number of OTC products intended for use on the surface of the skin, like wart removers, calluses treatments, acne treatments, exfoliants, and so forth that use salicylic acid in various strengths and formulations.
I don’t know about any styptic properties of salicylic acid, but it might have some effect on surface fungus by killing it and stripping off the top layer of the epidermis. Maybe.
WD-40 will probably remove bandaids because it does have some goo-removing properties. There are less smelly/messy alternatives, though. Still, if all you have is WD-40…
The plastic furniture thing probably depends somewhat on optical properties of dry vs. wetted surfaces. Water tends to darken surfaces, and make slightly roughened surfaces appear smoother, but it evaporates quickly. WD-40 does not evaporate quickly but has a similar effect. Of course, your now better-looking patio furniture will now smell like WD-40 and might feel greasy/transfer to clothing/skin. You could probably get the same effect from almost any lightweight oil. Lemon oil, for example, might do the same and it smells like lemons instead of fish, which most people probably find preferable.
I doubt WD-40 will unstick Super Glue. You need something like acetone for that, and so far as I know WD-40 doesn’t contain acetone. If you’re looking for a common household item to remove cyanoacrylate adhesives use acetone-containing nail polish remover (you can buy actual de-bonder for the job, but you may not have any handy).
Now, use of oils to separate, say, glued together fingertips sometimes work if the glue hasn’t developed a really good bond with the skin and the oil can get underneath the glue layer and help separate the two surfaces, but again, any lightweight oil can do that, including cooking oils, and don’t leave you smelling like WD-40. Whether or not that would work for surfaces other than skin depends on how well the cyanoacrylate bonded with the surface(s).
I’ll just mention that some of those choices are sort of toxic and might be absorbed through the skin or the fumes inhaled. So… alright, WD-40 doesn’t smell great but might be less toxic than some alternatives. YMMV and be careful.
I’ve just accidentally soaked a pair of my favorite sailing sneakers in diesel. Which is not dissimilar to WD-40. They’re currently sitting in the garage so either I throw them out or try the vinegar and Dawn thing. Some also recommend a Coca-Cola bath but I don’t see how that’s going to make things better.
Coke is as bad as vinegar for crazy claims. I can remember parents and teachers in grade school trying to scare us away from soda by saying the acid could dissolve your teeth and pennies and stuff. So of course my brothers and I tried pennies and nothing happened except we wasted a good Coke
Whenever I’d see the ‘coke can dissolve your teeth’ thing, I remember back to when science teachers and the various Mr Wizard/Beakman types would soak the teeth in coke for a week and show how soft they got. Did no one think about the fact that you don’t leave soda in your mouth for a week? To me, that’s like using a chisel to split a tooth in half and suggesting that if metal can do this to your teeth, you shouldn’t be letting the dentist put metal objects in your mouth.
Collectors and connoisseurs of those old 78 RPM records know this. (Well, some of them.)
When your record gets scratchy, wipe it down with a soft cloth with Vicks VapoRub. It will fill in the micro-scratches and restore the record to its original hi-fidelity glory.
But it doesn’t work on all old records – it only works on certain particular classical records, specifically music in the Baroque style (Vivaldi, e.g.). All other music, not so much.
I have heard similar claims made for toothpaste. It does work for phone screen scratches in my experience - at least for a while. In matters of paste, to each their phone.
I mean this: Dawn has one of the most aggressive and irritating scents I know. I have to leave the room if some has been used there. It gets me choking and coughing. And it persists a long time on skin.
I’d expect any effect you’d get from the aspirin paste would probably be more from the inactive ingredients (which make up most of the pill) rather than from the acetylsalicylic acid. Which won’t be much.
Dish detergent does indeed work very well for removing any sort of oil or grease, while still being safe for skin. That is, after all, what it’s designed for. It probably doesn’t have to be specifically Dawn, though.
One quirky one that works remarkably well: When you’ve got wood furniture that’s scratched, revealing a lighter color underneath (either not stained, or just less aged): Take the meat of a walnut (i.e., the part you’d eat) and rub it on the scratch. It won’t take away the physical scratch, but it makes it really easy to match the color exactly.
It probably does and it probably works the same way Armor All does. WD-40 contains petroleum products, whereas Armor All is mostly silicone. IME Armor All will revive vinyl and some plastics making them look great–temporarily. Both will leave a residue, and I’d bet that WD-40 is worse. Armor All tells you not to use it on things like brake pedals.
