Natural Wood Stain- Part 1

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THE IDEA:

• Homemade wood stain using vinegar

THE CLAIM:

• Steeping a metal object in vinegar will produce enough pigment to stain wood, as will brewed coffee and tea

THE RESULT:

• SUCCESS!

According to the pin I found, all you need is real steel wool and vinegar. You can use either white distilled vinegar or apple cider vinegar. Since I had plently of white distilled vinegar, I went with that. The idea is that varying metal objects will create different hues when mixed with the vinegar. The pin in question stated that steel wool alone would create a "rich reddish hue", a handful of pennies mixed with vinegar would create a "pale caribbean blue" shade, and a combination of tea and a metal object (I just used steel wool again) would create a black stain. For the vinegar based stains the instructions recommend leaving the stain in a glass container for a week for full results. So for part 1, we will just be looking at what happened on Day 1.

Allegedly, an important step to getting a good stain with the quickest results is to wash the oils off the steel wool before mixing it with the vingear. *Tip: Use gloves when doing this step. You'll notice I didn't and the fine strands of the steel wool were a tad bit sharp and irritating to my fingers.

As I was making the stains I realized LATER that the pin listed coffee and tea separately from the vinegar. All my stains in the photos below... have vinegar. So in part 2 of this review, I'll be adding the separate coffee and tea stains since those don't require any wait time. It may be interesting to see if the vinegar has any unique effects to each.

As you can see after only a few minutes both the tea (2nd one in) and the coffee (3rd one in) have already started changing color. *Side note: For the coffee, I emptied a tea bag and refilled it with coffee grounds.

After a 20 minute time lapse:

                      Steel Wool Only                             Pennies Only



              Steel Wool and Coffee Bag         Steel Wool and Tea Bag

After an hour the jar with steel wool only and the jar with pennies only has no change.

24 hours later:

So far no color change for the steel wool and the pennies. We'll see what happens in a week!

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Remove Ink Stains on Clothes

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THE IDEA:

• A simple spot remover using hand sanitizer

THE CLAIM:

• Prep the stain by soaking the inked area with clear hand sanitizer for 10 minutes, then wash as usual.

THE RESULT:

• SUCCESS! Well Kinda...

I tested 4 different types of pens: ball point, felt tip, gel, and a highlighter. This was definitely one of those pins that I anticipated getting unimpressive results with, but I was a bit suprised in the end.

I grabbed one of my Hub's old softball tourney tees (the ugliest one I could find! How'd I do??) and went to work marking it up. Since the pin was quite generalized saying simply " remove ink" I figured I'd go with all the kinds I had in my desk.

Next, I applied a liberal amount of hand sanitizer to each marking on the shirt... a VERY liberal amount. I wanted to make sure to get full coverage and make sure each spot was fully saturated. I left it on for 10 minutes exactly and washed as usual.

And here are the results!

As you can see the gel pen and highlighter marks were removed completely without a trace! The ball point and felt tip? Not so much! The felt tip was the least affected by the hand sanitzier, though the ball point was not far behind. So there you have it! Based on what type of ink is on your shirt this could really be considered a success OR a failure so you can decide how to grade this one!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next review!

 

Pet Hair Remover

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THE IDEA:

• A rubber glove to remove pet hair from upholstery

THE CLAIM:

• Use a damp rubber dishwashing glove to run your hand over hair-covered upholstery which will cause the hair to cling to the glove.

THE RESULT:

• FAIL!

I have a 2 1/2 year old boxer named Samson. Part of the appeal of getting a boxer was that they are short haired dogs that don't shed much. Well, my guy sheds... a lot! I have a feeling he probably needs to be brushed more often, but I usually leave the dog grooming up to the Hubs. ;) Anyhow, my fabulously spoiled dog looooves to lounge on the couch with Daddy. Daddy, of course loves it equally as much!


This is an older picture so this isn't the same couch I used for the pin test but the view from the new couch still looks just like this!

Mommy, while thinking the whole man and best friend snuggling is super cute, isn't a huge fan of all the lovely doggy hairs left behind! Nevertheless, it made for a great setting to test out this pin.

I made sure to give Samson plenty of R&R time on his favorite cushion for this test!



A closer shot so you can really see how much dog hair I'm working with here!

Got my rubber glove, dipped it in some water and shook it off so it would be be considered "damp" and went to work.

Some hairs...



A few more...

...But not enough! This was the "after" shot. I tried to zoom in so you could see what was left behind.

While the damp rubber glove technically did get some hairs off the couch, it wasn't enough for me to be able to call this a success. I'm sure the idea is that most people have rubber dishwashing gloves in their kitchen already so it would be simpler and cheaper than buying a lint roller. But frankly, considering how well this DIDN'T work, I'll spend the money on the lint roller thank you very much. I actually think it's likely that a dampened dish towel would have worked much better. So, I'm calling this one a big fat FAIL! At least on my couch. Maybe it might be worth a try on a microfiber couch instead???



All Natural Pimple Treatment

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THE IDEA:

• Homemade pimple treatment

THE CLAIM:

• Apple cider vinegar (ACV) diluted with a little water then applied topically to a pimple and allowed to sit for 15 minutes (then rinse) will clear up the breakout

THE RESULT: 

•  FAIL!

I actually kinda thought the ACV treatment would have worked but alas... it DID NOT! I was conveniently having a breakout when I came across this pin so I thought, "Hey, why not try it!" The only problem was when this didn't work, I had to walk around for a day with an attractive couple of white heads on my face that I REALLY wanted to pop but for the sake of testing out this natural pimple treatment I couldn't!

Before Shot- Zit #1- Day #1:

Before Shot- Zit #2- Day #1:

I applied with watered down ACV twice a day and left it on for 15 minutes at a time then rinsed it off. The 2nd time I applied in the day, I washed my face after and then went to bed. I did this for 2 days, initially planning to do it for 3 days, but I couldn't handle walking around with the giant white head you'll see below!!!

Look at that crap!!! Basically the ACV and water did absolutely nothing. My pimple went through the same process it would normally go through if I had left it alone.

The 2nd one didn't get a big white head but there was also zero improvement.

For me to consider a pimple treatment effective it has to show improvement at least by the end of the 2nd day. This did not. So by day 3, I was over it! I popped that sucker, put my Home Health Blemish Treatment Lotion on it ($5.99 at Super Supplements), and the next day it was nearly gone.