Humans have long been known for their creativity, and for their inventiveness in developing strange uses for everyday products in their world. Fans of the TV show MacGyver especially enjoyed the application of MacGyver’s problem solving ability to stop crime with an assortment of common objects. You don’t have to be MacGyver to know that some strange uses for everyday products can simplify your life. While some people want to purchase products specific to a single purpose, it’s often not necessary to double up on purpose-specific things when you may already have something in the home that may work just as well.

For instance, do you really a need a back massager when a racquet or tennis ball will give you a great massage? Do you need a stain remover if you have access to club soda and cola, and is it necessary to buy expensive hair conditioners if you’ve got olive oil and honey in the house? There are a number of books devoted to the practical and sometimes strange uses for everyday products. Chief among these is a series of books by writer Joey Green, though it should be noted he’s picking up the ball from columnists like Heloise, who’s been suggesting multiple uses for products for many decades.

Listed below are a few suggestions of strange uses for everyday products. This list is by no means exhaustive:

• Honey mixed with olive oil makes a great hair conditioner, or apply honey to burns to help cool them.
• Powdered milk blended with water and watercolor powder can be used to paint your house.
• Blending up Cheerios®: and then applying a small amount of water can make a terrific paste to relieve the itch of poison ivy or bug bites, or add a bit of blended up oat cereal to your bath tub for the same purpose.
• Try dusting baking soda under your arms or adding it to shoes as a natural deodorant.
• Before you hammer in nails or screw in screws, add a waxy lip balm like Chapstick® to them and you’ll be able to hammer with less force.
• Get that bright eyed and bushy tailed look by letting wet teabags sit on closed eyes for 15 minutes.
• Clean your dog’s brush with a toothpick
• Use orange peels, flour, coffee grounds, or cloves to repel ants.
• Create coffee filters out of paper towels.
• Use canned whipped cream to shave.
• Consider using a blow dryer on a low setting to help calm middle of the night ear pain in kids.
• Turn the vacuum cleaner on to help relieve the cries of colicky babies.
• Coat cut up sponges with petroleum jelly to make great fish bait.

For more strange uses for everyday products, check out the following books:

• Paint Your House With Powdered Milk, and Hundreds More Offbeat Uses for Everyday Products by Joey Green
• All-New Hints from Heloise by Heloise
• The Bubble Wrap Book by Joey Green and Tim Nyberg (look for used copies since the book is out of print).
• Stump the Duct Tape Guys by Jim Berg and Tim Nyberg, which features hundreds of strange uses for everyday products focusing especially on duct tape.