Salt’s multiple purposes

It gives our food flavour, our oceans healing properties and a tequila shot that kick it apparently needs.

Here are 17 uses for salt – besides being used for seasoning – that you may just find useful:

1. Foot bath

To remove dead skin, sweat and bacteria from your feet, soak them in a salt bath — table and sea salts are less drying than Epsom salt — for 15 minutes. It’s a great way to remove odour and relieve stress as well.

2. Make salt art

‘Salt painting’ is a process whereby salt is sprinkled over newly-finished paintings; the salt sucks up the paint, leaving little white starry spaces. Other ideas include painting with watercolour then sprinkling with salt. When it dries, brush the salt off to reveal a beautiful stippled effect.

3. Decorating with salt

Fill vases with salt to achieve a clean decorating aesthetic that’s cheaper than filling the vases with marbles or other small items. Salt is better than sand, too, because it provides a purer white color.

4. Clean pots and pans

For burned-on stains on enamel pans, soak the pan overnight in salt water, then boil salt water in the pan the next day. For hard-to-tackle burned-on milk stains, sprinkle the pan with salt and let it soak for 10 minutes. The stains and the odour will wipe away much more easily.

5. Clean copper and silver

By mixing together a vinegar and salt solution, you can restore copper to its natural brilliance. You can achieve the same results by sprinkling salt on half a lemon and using it as a pad to polish the copper. A few additional steps are need to clean silver — including boiling water; placing the silver items in the sink with foil; pouring baking soda and salt directly on the silver, followed by vinegar; and boiling.

Incase you missed this: Epsom salts: wonder substance with multiple benefits 

6. Cure canker sores

Canker sores are small, shallow sores on the inside of the mouth or at the base of the gum. They can be really painful at times. To cure them, mix salt into warm water and swish it around in your mouth for several seconds, repeating about three times daily until the sore is gone.

7. Remove blood stains

Scranton, PA, nurse Jonathan Steele suggests using salt to remove blood stains from white uniforms. “If I am wearing whites and get a drop of blood on them, a pack of salt, water, and a paper towel dissolves the stain and brings my whites back to white with no signs of spotting,” he says.

8. Clean tubs and sinks

Use coarse salt to clean grimy tubs and sinks. The salt acts as an abrasive to help remove caked-on gunk.

9. Deter ants

If you have an ant problem, sprinkle salt at the source — across windowsills, doorways, etc. Ants don’t like the feel of salt, so they won’t cross the line that you’ve drawn.

10. Clean up dropped eggs with ease

Trying to remove raw egg that’s dropped on the floor makes a slimy mess. Instead, pour salt over the egg and wait two minutes before wiping it up.

11. Prevent fruits from browning

If you don’t have any lemon on hand to prevent cut fruits like apples from browning, soak them in slightly salted water to ward off oxidation.

12. Exfoliate

Save money on expensive exfoliants by using salt instead. While your body is still damp after a shower, rub salt on your face and other areas where you want healthier, more radiant looking skin.

13. Clean a coffee pot

It’s hard to get your hand into the bottom of a coffee pot to scrub out those burned-on strains. An easy trick to get the pot spic-and-span is to cover the bottom with salt, fill it with ice cubes, and swirl it around. The salt scours the bottom while the ice helps remove other residue.

14. Set colour in garments 

Some know that soaking tie-dyed T-shirts in salt water will help set the colour so they won’t bleed in the wash, but a salt solution works for other clothing as well. Combine equal parts water, salt, and vinegar (a half cup of each should do) and soak single-hued textiles for at least a half hour.

15. Save clothes from freezing outside

If you’re saving money by hanging clothes outside to dry instead of tossing them in the electric dryer, this tip is for you. During the final rinse stage of the wash, add salt to the cycle. By doing so, you’ll prevent your garments from freezing on the line when the weather is cold.

16. Kill poison ivy

Have a patch of poison ivy growing in your yard? Prevent a potential problem by adding three pounds of salt to a gallon of soapy water and spraying the mixture on the leaves and stems of the plant.

17. Relieve bee stings

Apparently there are 100 ways to soothe a bee sting (probably more), one of which requires you to wet the affected area immediately and cover it with salt. Use a band-aid to keep the salt semi-in-place.

Another good read: 10 surprising uses for bicarbonate of soda 

 Read the original article here. 

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