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SALT LAKE CITY — Do you have too many pins on Pinterest and not enough time to try them all? Don't worry — the Page Two editors of ksl.com will try them out and give you the low-down. This week on Pinterest: I test drove 10 household uses for vinegar, from the kitchen to the bathroom to the laundry room.
Clean makeup brushes
I got this tip for cleaning makeup brushes from a previous pinner, since the link to beautyanywhere.wordpress.com references store-bought products (and baby shampoo, but that’s for another week). The pinner said: “A tablespoon of white vinegar in a cup of hot water and a 20-minute soak followed by a hot, then cold rinse and pat dry will do it. Disinfects, dissolves grease/makeup, leaves no film, and inexpensive.” I have expensive brushes that I’m not inclined to replace, so instead of going with a 20-minute soak I went about 2 minutes on only two brushes. I’m glad I did; while the vinegar didn’t seem to harm my horse-hair brush, it did harm the synthetic one. Instead of cleaning the brushes (which it didn’t), the solution seemed to just suck the life out of my formerly-fluffy concealer brush, leaving it to look like a shriveled tumbleweed. Take my advice: If you’re going to invest in high-quality makeup brushes, spend the extra $10 to get a high-quality cleaner. Final grade: D
Remove hard-water deposits
I now have a new miracle cleaner, thanks to diyconfessions.com. And believe me, with the hard water situation I have, I needed a miracle. This concoction of white vinegar, dish soap and lemon juice, mixed together and sprayed on liberally, went to work immediately cutting down the built-up hard water mineral deposits that had taken over my kitchen sink. After a 30-minute soak and a few minutes of scrubbing, my kitchen sink was on its way to being like new. I was so won over that I took the spray bottle upstairs to work on my shower door, and it was again a success. A word of warning, however: This solution really reeks — like, I felt like I was choking to death on toxic fumes. So open a window and wear a mask before you get to work. But even then, with the results it gets, it’s worth it. Final grade: A-
Clean your dishwasher disposal
Once I had a clean kitchen sink, I kept going and worked on disinfecting and deodorizing the disposal. This method from crunchybetty.com is basically a throwback to your elementary school volcano project, using a mixture of baking soda and vinegar to get the job done. And it was a job well done. Final grade: A-
Cut through and clean grease
The final step in overhauling my kitchen sink was to tackle the drain. A few weeks ago while draining some cooked ground beef, I knocked the entire grease can into the sink, through the drain stopper and down the pipes. Every attempt at cleaning it ended with a goopy, soapy, greasy mess worse than before the attempt. But then I followed the advice of simpleorganizedliving.com and poured a bit of vinegar down the drain, let it sit, then wiped the grease away. Like magic, my sink is clean and sparkly. Final grade: A
Make a buttermilk substitute
This is a trick I’ve been using for years. I use buttermilk in my cooking but not enough to go through an entire carton before it expires. I learned this trick for buttermilk substitute from my dad but found a written tip from frugalliving.about.com for you folks. This recipe (a combination of milk and vinegar) is quick, easy and cheap and works in a pinch. Final grade: A
Make fluffier pancakes
From the list of “50 uses for vinegar” from babycenter.com comes this tip: “Make fluffier pancakes by adding 2 TB of vinegar.” I should have known this wouldn’t work because of the aforementioned tip. When you add vinegar to milk, it makes it sour. Not just in flavor, but in texture: It literally curdles the milk. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except the recipe for standard pancakes differs from buttermilk pancakes (baking powder and baking soda are swapped at different measurements). The pancakes weren’t ruined, but the texture was off — spongy, airy and lacking the kind of substance you want in a good homemade pancake. Final grade: F
Clean a crusty water faucet
This tip is along the same vein as the tip for removing hard water stains, only instead of a lemon/soap/vinegar concoction, thethriftyhome.com suggests soaking a faucet head in vinegar. This does work really well at removing crusted-on mineral deposits, but heed this advice: Don’t forget about the faucet, like I did a few years ago, and leave it to soak for more than 24 hours. The vinegar ate through the metal faucet and ruined it. The lesson was learned, so this time I only let my kitchen sink spray nozzle soak for an hour or two. While not all the gunk was removed, it did get the nozzle in excellent working order again for the first time in ages. Final grade: B-
Remove odors from towels
Related:
DIY dishwasher detergent recipes put to the test
This week on Pinterest: a few DIY dishwasher detergent recipes.Amy from acontentedcommonlife.blogspot.ca has a great (albeit time-consuming) method for removing that mildew smell from towels and getting them delightfully fluffy again. It’s a three-step process involving vinegar, baking soda and tennis balls — yes, tennis balls, used in the dryer. It worked like a charm. I’ll definitely be doing this again next month. Final grade: A
Kill weeds
This easy tip from thefrugalgirls.com got mixed reviews from commenters, but I gave it a try anyway and sprayed my weeds with vinegar. I was careful to only cover the weeds and not the plants, and I tested in a small area near a curb so that if the vinegar tainted the soil I wouldn’t be in trouble for the next planting season. I guess I didn’t need to be so cautious because it didn’t do a thing — not to the soil, not to the plants, not to the weeds. Final grade: F
Make orange cleaner
OK, I’ll be honest: I screwed this one up. Therefore, this is only a half-tip. I attempted to make homemade orange cleaner as seen on littlebrickranch.com. I placed some orange peels in a jar, covered them with vinegar and let them sit for 10 days — except I tucked them away in the pantry and promptly forgot until I pulled them out more than a month later. I was going to give the mixture a try anyway, until I opened the jar and discovered that the portion of the orange peels at the top of the jar not covered in vinegar had become moldy and rotten. I ended up throwing out the whole thing, but I vow to try again. Learn from me, people: When it says “soak for X-amount of days,” follow the directions. Final grade: To be continued…
Bonus: Watch the video for a tip on cleaning wooden floors
Watch Lindsay test out the latest Pinterest finds on KSL-TV every Thursday at 12:45 p.m.
