1. Remove
Stains
Foods like
turmeric, berries, and beets are fabulous additions to any meal, but they have
a habit of leaving their traces all over your hands. It can take a lot of
scrubbing with normal soap to remove these stains, and it's really hard to
reach underneath your nails. Don't fear though, just keep half a potato back
when preparing the dish and rub it over the affected area to magically remove
the blemish! Make sure you get right under your nails too. This will work well
on grass and ink stains as well.
2. Make a
Hot or Cold Compress
This is one
you might have read about in books, and it's been used for centuries. Potatoes
retain their temperature for a surprisingly long time so if you are out and
about on a cold night, keep a couple of hot potato slices in your gloves or
pockets. Similarly, if you need to keep cool, use a frozen or chilled potato.
If you want to ease aches and pains, then make a hot or cold compress using
potato slices inside a sock.
3. Clean
Your Windows
Potatoes
make for a terrific non-toxic glass cleaner. Take a raw, uncooked potato and
rub if over your windows, car windscreen, or even eye glasses, before wiping
away the juice with a clean cloth. You will be left with gleaming glass,
without damaging your hands or leaving the smell of chemicals up your nostrils.
This works well on clear plastic like swimming or ski goggles as well.
4. Use
Potato Juice for Your Ailments
Okay, so
potato juice might not sound like the yummiest mixture in the world, but it has
been used for centuries to fight various ailments. It is considered effective
against ulcers, sprains, gout, sciatica, heart burn and bruising. The juice is
rich in vitamins and it's dead easy to make. Just put a couple of potatoes in a
blender, zap them for thirty seconds and you're done. Add carrot or cinnamon
juice to improve the taste and you have your own home made medicine.
5. Remove
Warts
Warts are a
rather unsightly annoyance, and if you get one, you will want to get rid of it.
There's no need to go and have it lazered off though, just treat it with a raw
potato. Carefully rub the cut end of the potato across the wart, and leave the
juice on. Repeat the process every day until the wart is banished for good!
6. Remove a
Broken Light Bulb from a Socket
This use of
potatoes is trumpeted by numerous sources! At some point in your life, you've
probably faced the annoyance of a light bulb breaking as you attempt to unscrew
it. You might be wondering why companies can't design bulbs that don't do this,
but in the mean time, you have a trusty potato to help you deal with the
problem. Cut the potato in half, and gently press the flat side on to the
remainder of the bulb. When the bulb is firmly inserted, you can simply screw
it out.
7. Shine
Your Silverware
If your
cutlery is cloudy and your trinkets are tarnished, why not use a potato to
restore their sparkle? You can rub a raw potato over the items if you like, but
I find it best to soak them in potato water. This also means you don't have to
use extra potatoes to perform the task, simply use the water from the batch you
have boiled for your dinner. Add any peeled skins into the water for great
results.
8. Feed Your
Geraniums
The
nutrients in potatoes will help your pot plants grown. You can either carve a
small hole in the potato and plant the stem of the flower inside it, before
putting the whole thing into the soil; or you can sprinkle some potato shavings
into the soil around your already growing flowers to give them a fantastic,
natural boost.
9. Sort Out
Your Skin
Potatoes are
great for your skin, so making yourself a potato face mask once a week can reap
rewards. You only need to use mashed potato mixed with water, and leave the
resulting paste on your face for 30 minutes. A couple of slices of potato can
also be used to reduce the appearance of puffy eyes and black circles, and are
a great alternative to the more widely used cucumber. The ability of potatoes
to clear up minor rashes and acne have been known for centuries!
10. Soothe a
Headache
Potatoes
have been used to help ease headaches for centuries, and you will only need a
few slices. You can rub them into your temples, or for more sustained relief,
fix them against your forehead using a head band or bandage.
11. Make
Some Great Personalized Art
We all
remember making potato stamps and dipping them in paint in art class at school.
But don't for a second think that this practice is just the preserve of
children. Just draw the shape you want on to the cut potato, carve out the
shape and dip it in fabric paint before dabbing it over your canvas.
Personalize bags, cushions, walls - whatever you like! It's a really fun and
easy way to personalize your home, and is great for kids too.
12. Relieve
a Burn
If you burnt
your fingers on a hot pan, or clipped your arm against the stove while it was
still on, reach for a potato. Just 1 slice of raw potato should do the trick -
apply it to the burn and fix in place using whatever you have handy.
13. Absorbs
Excess Salt from a Soup or Cooking Pot
If you have
over-salted your pot of soup or pasta by mistake, then throw in some potato
slices or cubes to restore the balance. Leave the potatoes in while the mixture
simmers for ten minutes or so, and then scoop them back out.
14. Banish
Rust from Metal
Are your old
tools or kitchen utensils starting to look like antiques? Restore them to their
former glories by chopping a potato in half, adding a liberal amount of soap or
salt to the cut end and rubbing it over the affected surface. Rinse and dry the
object thoroughly afterwards. This works great along the edge of large carving
knives!
15. Power a
Light Bulb
Okay, so we
expect this one is more for fun that anything else, but it's still fascinating
and great for entertaining the kids/grandkids. Did you know that potatoes
contain lots of energy, and the chemical reactions that take place between the
potato juices and a couple of dissimilar metals create enough voltage to power
a small electrical device?
To try this
for yourself, you will need: 1 large potato, two small coins, two zinc-plated
standard nails, three small pieces of copper wire and a small, low wattage
light bulb:
1. Cut the
potato in half, cut a slit in each half. Wrap the coins in the copper wire a
few times, using different wire for each coin. Then slide the coins into the
slits.
2. Take the
remaining piece of copper wire and wrap it around one of the zinc plated nails.
Stick the nail into one of the potato halves.
3. Take the wire that's connected to the coin
in the half of the potato that also contains the nail, and wrap it around the
second nail. Stick the second nail into the other potato half.
4. Connect
the two loose ends of the copper wire to the light bulb and it will light up.
Be careful
when allowing children to handle the copper wires as they contain a small
electrical charge, and don't perform the experiment near to an open flame.
Elm Belle <elm2belle@gmail.com>
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