One thing that has quite literally changed my life is regularly using a Neti Pot. I know it’s the furthest thing away from fancy new technology but I swear it’s reduced my allergy-related nose drippage by like 95% and I am a huge advocate now.
This may be outside the scope of this thread, but I’ll offer it up: allergy shots.
I got the scratch test and was diagnosed “allergic to the outdoors.” They actually stopped the test half-way through the allotted time because I had reacted so strongly to the test allergens.
Did the course of shots, and now instead of being on Claritin essentially from Valentine’s Day through July 4, I take the occasional one when the air gets really thick with pollen. Absolutely night and day.
When i was a landlord, we usually junked and replaced stove hoods, no tenant ever cleaned them. Then we found a product call Greased Lightning. It works.
Also, Shout laundry sheets. I mix all my clothing together, lights and darks, throw in one of the Shout Sheets and no color bleeding.
A paste of Oxi-Clean and water gets out just about any stain.
Oxi clean is great. I used the liquid mixed with baking soda to clean the grout in the bathroom of my new-to-me condo. The previous owners were smokers and chlorine bleach was working okay on the grout but not bringing it back to white. The Oxi-clean brings it back to white. That stuff is fantastic.
So DON’T buy the cheap diluted stuff, but DO buy the expensive stuff and dilute it yourself? That seems…unnecessary.
Shoot, I just throw glasses into the dishwater before I wash the dishes, clean with my fingers, rinse and dry. I use store brand “Dawn” (per the list of ingredients) Granted, these are not Rx glasses.
No… I think what he’s saying is don’t buy glasses cleaner at all, but rather use the stuff you probably have on hand. I mean, I could easily make the same thing he’s describing using the 70% alcohol I have on hand (after a little math to figure out the proportions of 70% alcohol to water), and the Dawn we have in the kitchen. Cheaper when you look at it that way than buying dedicated glasses cleaner.
Or you could do what I do and just use your soapy fingers to wash your glasses when you wash your hands, assuming your hands aren’t gritty or anything.
No, I wondered the same thing as snfaulkner. Why does it matter that you use “at least 90% alcohol, none of the dollar store diluted crap” if you’re just going to dilute it anyway?
The original “recipe” calls for rubbing alcohol. And it is to be diluted 50/50 with purified or filtered water.
If you buy your rubbing alcohol at the dollar store, and dilute THAT stuff, you’ll make an inferior finished product.
OR…you can buy the dollar store stuff, put in a glub of Dawn dish detergent, and stick the sprayer directly on the bottle of rubbing alcohol.
If it fits.
~VOW
Smart thinking. I may just have to do that. My contacts are gonna be on hiatus for awhile. My glasses never seem clean enough.
Thx **~VOW. **
One word: ShamWow.
I am also in the George Foreman Grill and Swiffer (at least for the Sweeper) camps.
I’m not following at all. the 90% rubbing alcohol is 90% isopropyl alcohol and 10% purified water. The “cheap stuff” is 70% isopropyl alcohol and 30% purified water. And you’re adding more water to it, but that still gives you a solution of water and alcohol and nothing else.
Mixing 90% rubbing alcohol 50/50 with distilled water is very close to mixing it 2/3 70% rubbing alcohol and 1/3 distilled water, with the main difference being slightly more alcohol in the second example (you actually want 64%/36%).
Either way, you’re getting 45-46% alcohol and 54-55% water in the final solution, regardless of which rubbing alcohol product you choose.
Is it the orange one? I’ve got that one and it’s pretty good.
I don’t buy microfiber anything anymore. It’s basically plastic, and it’s getting into the food chain.
Still have one, still use it. It’s great for bacon and grilling chicken. I admit I have never tried the other inserts that came with, but I am actively trying to find unused versions of the basic upper and lower plates because some of the teflon is starting to wear away.
QuickBrite. It looks like pink school paste and comes in a big (1 qt.) tub. Put a thin coating on any grill, oven surface, baking rack, or similar greasy/baked surface, wait a bit, then just wipe it off and rinse. It doesn’t stink like many degreasers do. It also works great on laundry stains (especially greasy ones). You can thin it down and spray it, but the paste form works best. I bought a tub about ten years ago and I’m still using it. It’s kind of like GoJo, but thicker and with less smell.
Not “hyped” in an ad-blitz sort of way, but something championed on a lot of message boards: Folex carpet spot remover. I ran across exuberant reviews for the product when searching for a way to clean my car’s floor mats. “Miracle” was a word often used.
My driver’s side floor mat was really bad. Folex helped, but it was a super-tough assignment.
But I tried in on a variety of indoor carpet stains (for the few areas in my house that still have carpet), and I will say “miracle” is pretty accurate. Stains of unknown origin that had been there for years were gone in 10 seconds. Spray, wait a few seconds, then gently wipe with a cloth.
Even better: no offensive odor (hardly any odor at all, that I can detect).
Nature’s Miracle de-scenter for cat/dog urine etc. Also their skunk de-scenter (no, not for de-scenting skunks, for dealing with the dog after the dog found a skunk.)
I’m not at all sure that the multiplying versions they now go in for aren’t all the same stuff with different labels, though (the skunk stuff possibly aside.)
The cheapie stuff at the dollar store is 50% isopropyl alcohol. If you dilute THAT, you’ll end up with a final product that is only one-fourth alcohol.
And you won’t be happy with the glasses cleaner, then.
~VOW
Years ago I bought a clearance Wraptastic, one of those plastic wrap dispensers. It works as well as the commercials say it does.
Oh- it has been over a decade since I saw a brand of plastic wrap with a slider cutter on the box for sale around here, so that option’s no good here.
Lestoil was really good about 25-30 years ago. Then it disappeared for “safety reasons” and came back a few years ago reformulated. Good, but not the magic stuff it used to be.