While just about everyone has a bar of soap at home, and probably many of them, few people realize that its uses go far beyond washing your hands.
You might really want to stock up when you learn just how versatile they really are.
1. Make soap sachets to keep deer and other wildlife out of your garden
If you live in an area where a lot of deer roam, we don’t have to tell you how quickly they can make a meal out of your garden. Of course, rabbits and other wildlife can do a lot of damage too.
You could buy some type of rabbit or deer deterrent at your local home and garden store, however most are expensive, filled with chemicals, and have to be applied after each rain shower, or even heavy dew.
Why do that when you can use a bar of Irish Spring? It’s much cheaper and it will keep those critters at bay.
All you have to do is cut a bar up into cubes and then wrap those cubes in some scraps of cloth. Now, staple them onto stakes and place the stakes strategically throughout your garden.
You may want to scatter a few tiny pieces of soap across the ground too. Often, it works for an entire season.
2. Prevent soot in your cast iron pot when cooking on an open flame
You know those wonderful camp cookouts you’ve enjoyed, perhaps cooking up a big pot of stew?
While the results can be mouth-watering, the soot that develops on the bottom of the pot can be tough if not impossible to clean off.
To prevent that problem in the first place, simply rub a bar of soap over the bottom of the pot before setting it over the open flame. The soap helps to make cleanup infinitely easier as it prevents soot from accumulating in the first place.
3. Avoid getting dirt under your fingernails
While gardening can be incredibly rewarding, when you’re done, you probably end up with a ton of dirt under your fingernails.
It somehow seems to happen even if you wear gloves, right?
You probably had no idea about this one, but a good way to avoid all of that grime, and having to try and scrub it out later, is to scrape your fingernails over a bar of soap to collect slivers underneath them before going out and playing the dirt.
It will prevent that dirt from caking up under your nails, and it will easily wash off.
4. Keep insects off your plants
You can also use soap to keep bugs from eating up your plants.
Just add a slice of soap to a container of water and mix until sudsy. Place the solution into a spray bottle and then spray the underside of your plant leaves.
5. Make smelly shoes smell nice again
If you’ve got smelly shoes, whether they’re tennis shoes, boots, sneakers or what have you, all you have to do is place a wrapped bar of soap in them and leave it there overnight.
By morning, that bad smell will be gone, instead, they’ll have a nice, fresh aroma.
6. Prevent moth balls & musky odors
To keep your clothes smelling fresh and in good condition, place wrapped bars of soap in your drawers, closets and anywhere else you store your clothing. It will prevent musty odors, and repel insects that can harm them.
7. Relieve the itch of bug bites
If you’ve been bit, especially more than a few times, it can be downright miserable, especially when you’re trying to sleep, but a bar of soap can come to your rescue again.
Just dampen a bar of soap and then rub it across the bites for immediate itch relief.
8. Remove stubborn stains from clothing
You can remove extremely stubborn stains from clothing by using a bar of soap too. Blood stains respond especially well to pretreating with bar soap.
All you have to do is rub the bar of soap across it. First rinse out the item, you can use cool water, and then rub with the soap; rinse and repeat if necessary.
This will even work for those especially challenging grass and dirt stains that can get on baseball or other sports uniforms – even stains that won’t come out with bleach.
Simply wet the soap, rub it in for a few seconds and, voila! The stain is gone.
While any brand will work on these and other serious stains like chocolate and berries, the consensus among users is that Ivory is the very best.
9. Get rid of fleas in your home
That soap water has lots of uses, including eliminating fleas. Add a slice of soap to a bowl of water and place it under a light. You may want to use a number of bowls of soapy water, placing them in areas of your home where fleas are especially rampant.
This will attract fleas to the water, and they’ll drown.
10. Make sewing easier
While it can be tough to get a needle to go through some types of fabrics, you can make it easier by sticking the needle into soap before using it to sew.
11. Fix a zipper
If you’ve got a zipper that’s stuck, you can fix it by sliding a bar soap up and down the zipper.
12. Use it to mark a hem
While most people use marking chalk to mark the line for a hem to sew clothing together, it can be hard to wash out. Instead, use a sliver of a bar of soap to draw the line for the hem, it washes out easily.
13. Loosen a ring that’s too tight
It can be so frustrating, and sometimes painful when a ring gets so tight that you can’t take it off. Even when it went on easily, if hot weather or something else causes it to swell, even only a tiny bit, it can make removing it seem impossible.
The next time that happens, rub soap over your finger and then wash it – the ring will slide right off.