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1. Clean Your Dishes & Dishwasher
While buying dish tablets to run in your dishwasher is already easy enough, vinegar may provide an even more simple solution. Rather than filling your dishwasher with dish tablets, try running a cycle with a little bit of vinegar. It is strong enough to cut through the grease and grime on your dishes, leaving them much cleaner.
While washing dishes is one of many uses for vinegar, the vinegar can also keep your actual dishwasher sparkly clean. Every few months, pour a cup of vinegar into the empty dishwasher and run a cycle. It will clear out any lime, hard water, or soap scum that inevitably builds up in your machine. By running a short cycle with vinegar, you ensure your dishwasher is clean enough to work at peak efficiency.
2. Wash Car Windows
Considering your car experiences a lot of wear and tear as it bounds down the road, it needs something a bit stronger than regular glass cleaner to remove built-up grime. Next time try cleaning the windows with a bit of vinegar when you wash your car at home.
Spray a healthy amount of vinegar onto the surface when washing your car windows. Then scrub it with a rag and wash the liquid away. The acidity of the vinegar will cut through all that built-up dirt, leaving your windows clean and clear.
3. Whiten Your Teeth
If you want a mouth full of pearly whites, you may have realized that brushing alone isn’t enough to clean your teeth. Instead of scrubbing away at your choppers, embrace one of the many uses for vinegar.
Clean your teeth with a toothbrush dipped in white vinegar once a week. The vinegar will leave gorgeous pearly whites behind.
4. Eliminate Stinky Odors
Cleaning your house is only half the battle. While your surfaces may be dirt-free, it’s hard to eliminate those lingering smells that make your home less-than-pleasant. But if you ever run into a smell you can’t remove, try vinegar.
Combine vinegar with water and a few drops of lemon essential oil. Then spray the mixture around your house, particularly in stinky places like the bathroom or the trash can. The vinegar will eliminate the smell and the lemon fills your home with a fresh, pleasant scent. Stinky odors will disappear with your handy gallon of vinegar by your side.
5. Eliminate Carpet Stains
Carpet stains are so disturbing. They stare up at you day after day, mocking your inability to clean them properly. But if you want your carpets to look good as new, try vinegar.
In a bottle or bowl, mix two tbsp of vinegar with a quarter cup of salt or baking soda. Then rub the mixture into your carpet, ensuring it covers the entire stain. Allow the mixture to dry completely before vacuuming it up. The vinegar mixture should remove the stain, revealing clean, mark-free carpets.
6. Make Your Towels Fluffy
After they’re used over and over again, towels lose their soft and fluffy appearance. Instead, they start to look dingy and rough — that’s not exactly what you want to wrap yourself in after stepping out of a warm shower.
If your towels could use a little refresher, pull out your bottle of vinegar. Next time you wash your towels, include half a cup of vinegar in the cycle. The vinegar will revitalize your towels, making them fluffy and inviting once again.
7. Banish Fleas From Your Pet
Pets are prone to fleas, but that doesn’t mean you want to invite these critters into your home. Rather than searching for a flea shampoo that does the job, use vinegar to banish the pests from your pet’s coat.
Combine one part apple cider vinegar to one part water in a spray bottle. After shampooing your pet during their next bath, spray them with the vinegar mixture. The vinegar creates an unpleasant environment for any pest, including fleas. If you apply the mixture regularly, you’ll ensure that your pet lives a flea-free life.
8. Deodorize & Clean the Garbage Disposal
After you use your garbage disposal again and again, you’ll notice that it starts to emit a rather yucky smell. But of course, no one wants to stick their hands into the dark depths of their sink to clean out all the food bits trapped inside. Thankfully, one of the many uses for vinegar is its ability to quickly and painlessly clean your garbage disposal.
Next time you need to clean your disposal, get an ice tray and create cubes that include a lemon wedge, one part vinegar, and one part water. Then pop the tray into the freezer until the cubes are frozen. When you need to clean your disposal, simply pop one or two of those cubes down your sink and run the disposal. The mixture will clean out any yucky grime that causes a nasty smell, leaving your disposal clean and your kitchen smelling of lemons.
9. Wash Fruit To Preserve It Longer
This is one of the uses for vinegar that you can use all the time. When you purchase new fruits and veggies from the store, take a moment to wash your produce in vinegar. Simply fill your sink with warm water and add half a cup of vinegar. Then allow the product to sit for roughly ten minutes. Rinse them off before storing them in your fridge.
10. Remove Stains
No matter how careful you are, you’re bound to get the occasional stain on your clothes. But rather than scrubbing away with stain-remover or, even worse, tossing out the item altogether, grab your handy-dandy bottle of vinegar.
The vinegar will clear out extra gunk that makes your produce go bad more quickly. If you wash your produce in vinegar first, you’ll notice you get an extra week out of your fruits and veggies.
11. Help Cut Flowers Last Longer
A bouquet of flowers looks gorgeous in your home. Unfortunately, it also has a short shelf life. As soon as those flowers are cut from their parent plant, they start to die. Within a few days, your gorgeous bouquet will be a wilting mess.
As soon as you notice a stain, lightly rub a bit of vinegar into the affected area. Then toss the item into your hamper and wash it as usual. There’s no need to wash right away — vinegar will still do the trick, even if it takes you a few days to get around to your laundry. When you do wash the stained item, the vinegar will lift the mark right out, leaving your garment as good as new.
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12. Make Your Own Clarifying Shampoo
If you deal with a particularly oily scalp, then you know the trouble of keeping your hair clean without damaging the strands. But rather than purchasing an expensive clarifying shampoo to cleanse your roots, try making your own at home using vinegar.
However, if you know the uses for vinegar, you can prevent your flowers from dying so quickly. When you get your new bouquet, add two tablespoons of vinegar and one teaspoon of sugar to the water in the vase. The vinegar mix acts as flower food, allowing your bouquet to stay healthier for a longer period of time.
13. Repair Scratched DVDs
While streaming services are all the rage nowadays, plenty of people still turn to their trusty DVDs when they want to watch a movie. There’s just one problem with these discs: they tend to get scratched. But rather than classifying your DVD as a lost cause, turn to your bottle of vinegar.
Using an old shampoo bottle, mix together one part apple cider vinegar to two parts water. Shake up the mixture and apply it evenly to your hair, combing it through from roots to ends. Allow the mixture to sit for five minutes, then wash it out. When you’re done, your hair will be perfectly clean and shiny. Repeat the same process at least once a week to keep your locks oil-free.
14. Kill Pesky Fruit Flies
Even if you’re a total animal-lover, fruit flies are always considered unwelcome houseguests. Thankfully, you don’t have to put up with these pesky critters flying around your kitchen. That is, not if you have a little vinegar.
Among the many uses for vinegar, this all-purpose liquid is also an effective way to repair scratched DVDs. If your disc skips or freezes, simply wipe down the bottom part with a soft cloth soaked with white vinegar. When the DVD dries completely, insert it into your player and prepare for a skip-free movie.
15. Get Rid Of Odor
We’ve all dealt with odd odors in our house from time to time. Even if your home doesn’t smell particularly bad, it might exude an unpleasant, musty scent that’s hard to fully get rid of. But no matter what odors you’re dealing with in your home, vinegar provides a solution.
Take a small saucer or jar and pour in a bit of apple cider vinegar. Then add a few squeezes of dish soap on top. Place the dish in the area where you’re having the most trouble with fruit flies. The flies will be attracted to the smell, but they’ll soon drown in the liquid, leaving your kitchen a fly-free zone.
16. Fix Clothes That Smell Of Mildew
Once you throw your laundry into the machine, it’s so easy to forget about it. Unfortunately, if your wet clothes sit for an extended period of time, they develop a gross mildew smell that’s difficult to get rid of. Thankfully, among the many uses for vinegar is the ability to put an end to that scent for good.
For this hack, you’ll simply need a bit of vinegar and a slice of white bread. Place the white bread in a bowl and fully immerse it in vinegar. We know it sounds odd, but just give it a try! Once the bread is soaked, place the bowl in the smelly area of your home for 24 hours. The acid in the vinegar will combine with the yeast in the bread, absorbing any odors and leaving your home smelling clean and fresh.
17. Use As Weed Killer
If you’re trying to keep your home garden alive and thriving, getting rid of weeds is your first priority. But chemical weed killers can not only damage the plants you’re trying to grow, they can also have harmful effects on your family and pets.
To keep your home a chemical-free zone, use vinegar as a weed killer. Look for a high acidity vinegar and pop it in a spray bottle to rid yourself of the pests in your garden. Use the vinegar on its own, or combine one gallon of white vinegar with a tablespoon of dish soap and a cup of salt for an even more effective mixture. Using this method, your garden will be both weed and chemical-free.
18. Buff Out Scratches In Wood Furniture
No matter how careful you are with your wood furniture, scratches are bound to develop over time. That’s part of the natural wear and tear, but it doesn’t mean it looks good. If you want to keep your furniture in pristine condition, use a little vinegar.
Mix apple cider vinegar with iodine in a bowl or bottle. Then spread the concoction over the scratches in your wood. This simple hack should buff out all the scratches, leaving smooth wood behind. If the wood is darker, use a bit more iodine to get the results you’re looking for.
19. Calm Sunburn
Getting a sunburn is frustrating and painful. While you should always wear sunscreen if you’re stepping out on a sunny day, it’s likely you’ll be cursed with an unfortunate sunburn at some point in your life. But instead of just waiting it out while your skin suffers, soothe your sunburn with a bit of vinegar.
Pop a bottle of distilled apple cider vinegar into the fridge. Once it’s cool, pour it onto a soft cloth and gently pat your burned areas. The vinegar has properties that can help to minimize peeling and itching. While the bright red color won’t go away, the vinegar will make you a little more comfortable while you wait for your sunburn to fade.
20. Make a Wrinkle-Releaser
The many uses for vinegar aren’t limited to the kitchen. You should also keep a bottle of this substance on-hand in your laundry room. After washing your clothes, you likely have to iron delicate pieces in order to rid yourself of those pesky wrinkles. But ironing is time-consuming and not exactly enjoyable. Instead of wasting time at the ironing board, try making a wrinkle releaser with a bit of vinegar.
In a spray bottle, combine a teaspoon of hair conditioner, a tablespoon of white vinegar, and two cups of water. When your clothes come out of the dryer, mist them with your new spray. The spray would relax the fibers in your clothes, eliminating wrinkles immediately. No ironing necessary!
21. Fix Streaky Windshield Wipers
In addition to cleaning your car windows, vinegar can also help to increase the effectiveness of your windshield wipers. As the wipers get older, you may notice they start to streak and stick. Instead of making your window cleaner and allowing you to see better, they just smear the dirt and water across the windshield.
However, you don’t have to replace ineffective wipers altogether. Instead, soak a cloth in distilled white vinegar and rub it back and forth across the rubber. The vinegar will remove stubborn dirt and grime that’s leading to streaky windows. With this simple hack, your windshield wipers will be as good as new.
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22. Soothe Sore Throat
For most people, drinking vinegar sounds like the worst idea in the world. Vinegar isn’t known for its pleasant flavor, but it might be just what you need to get rid of your sore throat.
Next time your throat feels a little raw, grab a cup of hot water, and add a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. Then stir in a bit of honey for sweetness. Once that’s done, drink the whole concoction. Your breath might smell bad, but your sore throat will be much better.
