Before you run out to the store to get sticker remover or toenail fungus spray look around your house, you’d be surprised what bizarre secrets your cupboards are keeping secret from you.
Try these home remedies and share them with your friends. They’ll save you a lot of money and are great icebreakers to talk about at your next cocktail event!
The 5 S’s for Fussy Baby
If there were such an award, Dr. Harvey Karp should win the Doctor of the Millennium Prize for giving new parents a fighting chance for a good night’s sleep with his research on how to calm down fussy infants.
Coined “The Happiest Baby on the Block”, Harvey teaches how to elicit baby’s innate calming reflexes through what he calls the 5 S’s: Swaddling, shushing, sucking, side-laying, and shaking (not really shaking the baby, but more of a jiggle). Start to implement the 5 S’s early and you’ll find yourself sleeping through the night in no time!
Duct Tape for Poison Ivy
The usefulness of duct tape in healing warts is all over the Internet – covering warts with duct tape eliminates them better than freezing methods as the chemicals in the tape suffocate and kill the wart – but did you know that duct tape is one of the most effective ways to prevent poison ivy from spreading as well?
The same principles apply like with warts, but duct tape actually helps “suck” the urushiol (the oil in poison ivy that people are allergic to) right out of your skin. Tear a small piece of duct tape and place it over each blister or red spot as soon as you suspect a problem.
Make sure you wash the affected area first and reapply tape at least once a day. Doing this will help protect the infection from spreading to other parts of the body and will cushion the sore spot in case you bump up against a hard surface.
Water bottle (frozen) for Sore Tootsies
Used by physical therapists, rolling your feet over a bottle of frozen water does wonders for sore feet. Whether you wear high heels or cowboy boots all day, cryotherapy (ice therapy) reduces inflammation, decreases pain, and helps foot muscles regain proper range of motion. Athletes use cryotherapy extensively to help recover from game-day aches and pains.
Baking Soda and Cranberry Juice for UTI’s
It is suspected that alkaline properties of baking soda reduce bacteria’s ability to multiply in the bladder. Combined with a cranberry juice regimen, you should be able manage a urinary tract infection (UTI) no problem at all.
At the first sign of a UTI drink a solution made with a quarter teaspoon of baking soda mixed in eight ounces of water. Follow that with two glasses of cranberry juice. Repeat this twice a day until symptoms get better.
Ginger for Motion Sickness
A study in the American Journal of Physiology—Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology found that “ginger effectively reduces nausea, tachygastric activity, and vasopressin release induced by circular vection.”
In other words, ginger acts as an effective home remedy to prevent motion sickness. Try steeping some ginger in boiling hot water for 10 minutes to make fresh tea that you can take on your next car or plane trip.
Apple Cider Vinegar for Sunburns
Don’t mind smelling like vinegar for a while because this works wonders. The best thing to do is take a cool shower and after drying-off, apply some unfiltered apple cider vinegar liberally over sunburned areas with a cotton square.
Follow up the apple cider treatment by spreading some aloe mixed with a couple drops of lavender to soothe the skin and give you a nice aroma to help mask the vinegar smell.
Apples When You Don’t Have a Toothbrush Handy
Albeit high in sugars, apples – known as “nature’s toothbrushes” – clean those hard to reach places where toothpicks can’t go.
Crunchy, crispy fruits even have an abrasiveness that can help to lift stains from the teeth and give the illusion that they are whiter, making them nature’s cheapest and most effective teeth whiteners.
Beets for Constipation
Next time you’re constipated try eating a couple of freshly steamed beets, and remember to keep the left over beet run-off water to wash it down with. The water left over from steaming is high in vitamins and helps rid your body of excess colon obstruction.
Don’t get nervous the next day when your stool or urine is red, you’re not hemorrhaging! This is a natural product of digesting beets.
Coconut Oil: In a Class of its Own
Finally, no list of bizarre of home remedies would be complete without giving a shout-out to the unbelievably resourceful coconut oil. There seems no end to its usefulness from managing health issues to helping with household chores. Here are a few:
- Lip balm
- Toothpaste (combine with baking soda)
- Butter replacement for popcorn (in fact, butter replacement for any food!)
- Furniture polish
- Shoe polish
- Canker sore soothing
- Season Cast-Iron Frying Pans
- Remove sticky labels and price tags
- Makeup remover
- Skin conditioner
- Hair conditioner
- Anti-fungal for toe/fingernails
- Urinary tract infections