The Unlikely Power of Baking Soda

A review of 500 Uses for Baking Soda, and how my baking soda experiments turned out!

I got my hands on a copy of a most unusual title while browsing my favorite used bookstore. The title was arresting enough, reading, in large print, BAKING SODA. Hmmm. It was lengthly subtitled, Over 500 fabulous, fun and frugal uses you’ve probably never thought of.

It sounded like a challenge. And if you are anything like me, you’d happily spend hours reading the thing, highlighter in hand to memorize new uses for an old household staple. How could I pass this up?

Vicki Lansky’s one-woman tribute to sodium bicarbonate boggles the mind. In her own mother’s words, “Who would believe she could have come up with all these uses?”

Everyone knows you can cook with baking soda: it makes bread rise. It’s a natural antacid. Dentists say you can brush your teeth with it. And it’s quite common for to see an open box in the fridge for food odor absorption.

But did you know that fridge box is only good for 3 months? After that, its freshening properties are used up. Get another box. What to do with the used-up, old box? Well, Lansky’s got ideas for that, such as sprinkling the powder around the soil of tomato plants to lower their acidity and discourage pests. I haven’t tried this one, yet.

So, okay, I’m game. I tried a few of these ‘uses’ and hard a darned good time doing it. My fiance thinks I’m nuts for getting so excited over baking soda, but likes that the product is undeniably cheap.

Playing with powder
Here are the ideas from the book that I tried, and how it all went.

• Laundry Booster – On the book’s recommendation, I added a ½ cup to my washer load, along with my detergent. Not only did my colors and whites come out brighter, but even my workout clothes smelled nice when I took them out. Lanksy notes this boosting effect only works with liquid laundry detergents, however. I suspect the deodorizing effect works with either kind.
• Garbage Disposal Maintenance – When I noticed a stink arising from the disposal afer a weekend away, I immediately poured a ½ cup down the drain, followed by vinegar. It bubbled and frothed and took the nasty scent away. I didn’t even need to run water after it.
• Garbage Can Odors – This one’s easy – sprinkle over wet, nasty garbage to remove the odor. My take is that you need too much soda to really get the odor out. It’s better to just take out the garbage. But I did find that sprinkling a little soda in the garbage can bottom, between changing the bags, was helpful.
• Carpet Cleaner – Sprinkle over the carpet and let sit overnight. Use a cheese shaker or flour sifter to spread it evenly - otherwise it either clumps, or all comes out at once. Vacuum in the morning. This old technique still works great. As the proud owner of two dogs, I can verify how well baking soda works to dissolve canine odor.
• Tarnished Silver – I tried two baking soda techniques for cleaning silver and was pleasantly surprised with both.

  In the past, I used harsh-smelling chemical products, the kind that’s impregnated in a wad of wool, to scrub, scrub, scrub my silver. The process was always messy and stinky. On really old, dirty, heirloom silver, it didn’t even work at all, besides stripping away my silver plate to reveal the copper beneath.

  Blech. These methods are MUCH better:

  1. Baking soda and water, mixed into a paste, cleans the tarnish right away. Spread the goop all over your silver item, let it sit for ten minutes, then rub with your fingers (or an old toothbrush) until dirty baking soda paste falls away. Rinse, buff – and if necessary – repeat. This method cleaning and safely bids the grime begone from my stemware and plates.

  2. The other method is great for utensils. Fill a plastic bucket, or your sink with hot water. Add a square of aluminum foil. Sprinkle your silver with baking soda, drop into hot water, and let sit 15 minutes. Take out the silver and buff with a soft cloth. My silver turned clean and shiny with very little effort!

  ---

  UPDATE: Reader’s Suggestions
  “Hi there….I use baking soda on my skin or my daughters when we get bit by mosquitos or bees. Just make a little paste with water and the b. soda and it doesn’t itch and heals quickly, no pain! Also, it SUCKS the “poison” out when I get poison ivy……..i use it instead of calamine lotion.(i get this p. ivy at least 2 times every 10 years and rely on it!)” - Rhonda, 11/03

  The book
  Baking Soda, Over 500 fabulous, fun and frugal uses you’ve probably never thought of, by Vicki Lansky, 1995, The Book Peddlers, ISB 0916773426

Reuse Dryer Lint

I keep a small bin in my laundry room for storing the dryer lint. Since we do a lot of laundry, we get a lot of that grayish, pinkish fluffy stuff. Did you know you can reuse that lint?

As part of the greater effort to close the loop in my own home (ie, keep trash to a minimum, reuse my household wastes as resources), I have been feeding my lint into the compost bin - my Earth Machine (see previous article on this site). After all, the bin instructions said I could do this. And I feel better keeping one more thing in the cycle of life, so to speak. My lint will become part of a tree.

Then I read an article about fire starting, where Colleen O’Brien writes of how dryer lint makes a fabulous sparker in adverse conditions. She says to stuff a film canister with all the lint you can squeeze in (several dryer loads can be stuffed in if you try); then fill a second canister with vaseline-smeared cotton balls. She writes that lighting the lint, even in the worst wet conditions, will bring enough heat to start the cotton balls…which will flare long enough for your kindling to catch. I’ve tried this in the miserable soggyness of Northern Minnesota, and can vouch for its effectiveness.

A reader wrote in to add this:

I got a slightly easier version of using lint to start fires. We
used dryer lint to start fires in Boy Scouts. Just stuff an empty
egg carton with lint then pour in candle wax. You can break off
each section as you need it.

Maybe you can even use this technique in the home, as in your fireplace or woodburning stove, for a quick and easy start to your roaring indoor fire. Or put some lint in your homemade candles, to keep them burning brightly.

I got thinking about other uses for lowly dryer lint. It’s not a savory item. I wouldn’t really want to stuff a pillow with it, even though it’s clean (obviously, it’s been through a washer before that dryer). It’s not a particulary nice thing for packaging…who would like to open a box from eBay and get a lot of lint protecting their fragile items?

As a mulch, it might be suitable. If you have a small veggie garden, even a container one on the balcony, you could probably lay the lint around your plants to keep moisture in and prevent weed growth. I would only try this in the drier areas, since I have visions of mold growing in lint mulch, for those who live in humid states.

It might be a good addition to worm bins - vermiculture. I have not tried it yet. Let me know if you do.

Lately I’ve been putting the lint wads in my guinea pig nesting box. They do seem to like it - it’s warm, clean and cuddly, and looks JUST LIKE the nesting box material that you can purchase at places like PetSmart.

A few sites online report that lint makes great clay, paper and paper mache. Lint crafting even has its own website here, with recipes - great recycle crafts. The basic materials seem to be lint, water and wheat, for the papermache; and lint, water and glue for the clay and homemade paper.

One website recommends placing lint on tree branches, so birds can use it for nests. This actually sounds like a nice idea.

Getting into the odd territory: here’s a website with pictures of someone’s lint dryer “Pets” - Lint Dryer Pets. I guess fashioning shapes out of your lint is better than staring at the walls when bored.

This artist has even taken lint art into the studio - The National Lint Project. Coming to a laundromat near YOU.

Um, okay. I’m already out of ideas. I’ll add more if I think of anything. But it’s still a good exercize in creativity. What humble home wastes can YOU reuse?

• Funny Lint Site - My Lint Collection. Good for a giggle.
• Online Lint Weirdness - Lint, the Musical
• Finally, here’s a book that hasn’t been released yet, but I am excited to see what ideas it might have for closing the loop in the home, whether it mentions lint or not:
  Household Waste (Recycle, Reduce, Reuse, Rethink)

Christmas Recycling - Make Earth Friendly Gift Wrap

Every year I have the same dilemma - what to wrap my Christmas presents in that is both environmentally-friendly AND attractive?

I hate seeing those piles of torn wrapping paper heaped under the tree after present-opening time. These papers were barely used and are now ready for the trash, and the landfill. One option is recycling them - but many of these speciality papers are hard to categorize, with metallic dyes added. Are they actually recyclable? And would you want them in your compost bin if they are toxic? What to do?

Here are some options I’ve tried and their mixed results:

• Buy wrapping paper made specifically from recycled content. You can feel better buying it, and can probably recycle or compost it when you are done. Buying wrapping papers from charity groups involved in saving rainforests will salve your conscience and is a nice gesture.
• Pick up inexpensive rolls of leftover wrapping paper from Goodwill or the Salvation Army. When I stopped by Goodwill today, I saw bins full of 1/2 and 1/4 rolls for less than a dollar each.
• Save used wrapping paper this Christmas and reuse it all next year. I did this through-out my twenties. Now I don’t really care to store used paper all year, but it worked fine for me at the time. The downside: your gifts don’t look very pristine all wrapped up, sitting under the tree, with the professionally-wrapped stuff from everyone else. My parents understood my recycling convictions, but still, my gifts looked ‘cheaper’ than the others. If you can get your whole family to save and reuse together, this option should work for you. Make sure everyone opens their gifts carefully - no frantic ripping allowed!
• Make your own gift wrap from butcher paper, reused brown paper bags, newspaper and the funny pages. These can look GREAT! Try some raffia twine bows with the butcher paper and brown bags, for a pleasant, simple, rustic look. Or get the family together to create your own designs drawn on the butcher paper - use crayons, markers or mixed media. Make a stencil from a potato for the brown paper bags. You don’t need bows, and these hand-made offerings are like another gift all by themselves. Best of all, the paper, bags, and newsprint can all be recycled or composted.
• Buy a bundle of pretty gift bags from your local dollar store, and reuse them each year. Tie the handles together with some ribbon so gift-getters have something to “unwrap”. These bags come in all designs and look very nice under the tree. They are also a boon for wrapping odd-shaped gifts.

  Here is another option for reusable gift bags: Read my Reusable Bag Product Review.

• Along the same lines, you can pick up a bunch of used but pretty baskets from your local Goodwill or thrift store. Put the gifts in the baskets and presto! Nothing to chuck. Everyone can use a basket or two in their lives.
• Make lovely, reusable gift sacks from cloth material you have lying around. Fold material in half and sew up one bottom and the other side. Leave the top open, insert gift, and tie shut with a ribbon. These sacks can be as simple or extravagant as your talents/interest allows.
• Give gift certificates this year. Place the certificates in a nice envelope, clip with hole puncher, add a bit of ribbon and dangle from the tree. The nice thing about this: there’s virtually no wrapping to deal with (recycle or reuse that envelope), and the recipient gets a gift they will actually enjoy, since they get to pick it out.
• You can also make your own paper, using recycled materials of course! These two wonderful books will get you started:

  These are the full titles for the books I recommended above:

• Creative Handmade Paper: How to Make Paper from Recycled and Natural Materials
• Scented Herb Papers: How to Use Natural Scents and Colours in Hand-Made Recycled and Plant Papers

Have fun and a Merry Simple Christmas!

Hi Jill. I just read your article on recyling gift wrap and I agree with almost all you said. But you said that using wrapping paper that has been used before looks tacky. I disagree. I use it all the time and I have a little trick that makes it look almost like new paper. Just take and place your paper on the ironing board and sprinkle with water or a water and starch mixture. Iron the paper to dry the moisture out and your paper looks almost new. Unless it has really heavy creases in it works great.

Awesome! I love hearing tips like this. Thanks for sending!

A Recycled Christmas - Reused Gifts Are Better

For busy people who are driven crazy each holiday season, it is a good idea to get some of the holiday “work” completed in the longer, hotter, slower summer months. It might even make you forget the heat!

It’s funny how Christmas has entered our collective cultural consciousness so early in the year, these days. While a cynical part of me cringes to hear the Christmas in July commercials, it’s certainly true you can find some very good deals, and get your Christmas chores done super early.

Christmas chores to think about getting out of the way in the summertime:

• Making your gift lists
• Shopping the sales, especially those “Christmas in July” ones…be on the lookout for the true screaming deals to be had; not just the loss leaders
• Tackling the Christmas sections of Goodwill and thrift shops for wrapping paper, good scissors, tape, lights, candles, decorations, ornaments and even gifts. It’s all there, and you won’t be competing too much with the other shoppers for the best stuff, this early in the year
• Some thrift shops even put out tables of their Christmas stuff on sale for super-cheap prices in the summer, just to help move their huge holiday inventories along. Remember, they will be gearing up for all the holidays soon, starting with Halloween
• Keep your eyes open for the best used items, even at garage sales, for excellent, budget-minded gifts. The idea is not as radical as it sounds.Even CNN.com covered my take on the used gifts theme
• Think ahead about your holiday parties. You can find great deals at thrift shop and budget stores like Ross and the Dollar Tree for party supplies, sets of matching stemmed wine glasses, elegant cloth napkins and napkin rings, pretty holiday thrift bags, inexpensive party favors, festive cookies cutters, baking sheets and cooling racks…even find a nice party dress that you can set aside for later
• Plan your recipes. You can look through your books and files for food themes you wish to try this year, and set aside cookie recipes and dessert ideas while dreaming of that white Christmas on a long, hot afternoon…
• Make a Christmas shelf or set aside a part of a closet for your Christmas aquisitions. Top shelves are good for hiding gifts you don’t want youngsters stumbling upon. Get some large baskets from Pier 1, Cost Plus or Ross, and toss your Christmas supplies, all pre-organized, into your new Holiday Strategic Planning Area

With luck and forethought you can actually have a relaxing yule this year. Everyone else will be running around with the screaming meemees by November - and you can take time to be with your family this upcoming season. Isn’t THAT what Christmas is supposed to be about?

Simplify Your Year

This month-by-month listing of what upkeep activities to focus on throughout the year will keep you from feeling overwhelmed by the massive amount of upkeep our daily lives can require! Feel free to adjust this schedule to reflect your own life’s needs and situations:

A year’s worth of simplifying in one easy chart:

January - Examine life goals, make one big resolution for the year, or three medium-sized ones

February - Taxes and paper file purging

March - Licenses: Are addresses current? Has anything expired or been lost? Driver’s license, vehicle registration, insurance premiums, voter registration, homeowner’s insurance; renew passport if needed

April - Pet Month: vaccinations, checkups, heartworm preventative restarted, a good grooming, throw out old toys and clothes, prep for flea season, start checking for ticks, consider upgrading to a better food formula

May - Plant Month: Top dressing and repotting houseplants, start tomatoes inside, pruning houseplants and garden, compost weary plants, lay out mulch, turn compost in bin if it’s been awhile

June - Spring Cleaning: clear out closets, garage, old videos and electronics, eliminate junk in junk drawes, wash windows, plan garage sales, donate old books, clothes and magazines, wash front door, wash windowsills, clean out window and shower tracks, drain filters in washing machine and dish washer, vaccuum back and under fridge, clean out fridge

July, August - Home and Garden Months. Or take a vacation from planning - you deserve it!

September - Personal and Family Health Month: booster shots (tetanus, flu?), teeth cleaning and dental exam, health checkup, dermatologist checkup, body fat testing, eye exam, update eyeglass prescription if needed

October - Car Health Month: Tune up and oil change, rotate/balance/align tires, check belts and hoses, mileage checkup, get detailed, winterize

November - Update Documents: wills, trusts, household inventory updated

December - Life Goals: review the year. How well did you do? Are your inner needs also getting met? Winter is a great time to look within

Foraging for Blackberries

Summertime is berry time in much of the northern world. The blackberries, at least here in the state of Washington, are plump by July and ready for eating all summer long. You can plan an entire afternoon collecting berries, eating some for a picnic, and taking the rest home for some elegant, healthy treats.

Blackberry Picking

The best way to pick blackberries: head to any park, hiking trail or cycling greenbelt flanked with the twisty, thorny bushes, and start picking. Blackberry bushes make thick, impenetrable thickets in boggy lowlands and low grassy areas close to bodies of water. The purple berries are the ones to pick and they should come right off the vine with the slightest tug.

If you are foraging for berries to take home, make sure you are ready with a sturdy container to hold them. I like a wide-mouthed Nalgene bottle for simple afternoon pickings, or a sturdy, large basket for serious collecting. Using a baggie is less satisfying to the soul, and can also result in squished berries and a sticky, leaky bag.

If you are using a bugspray while picking, make sure you have none on your hands. You don’t want toxins to get on your food, and into your body.

Other blackberry picking gear includes thick cotton pants (denim or Carharts work well) for wading into thorn territory, closed-toed shoes for the same reason, and possibly a set of garden gloves. I prefer to use my hands, so as not to bruise the berries, and to improve my hand-eye coordination - a pricked finger learns quickly what not to pluck!

Take only the blackest, most plump blackberries, from the branch. Leave the red and pink berries to continue to develop (for the next people happening by, and for the birds and other creatures that depend on berries for survival). If you only select the berries that are ready to fall anyway, you will not be denuding the branches! Be sure to ask landowner’s permission if you are berry-picking on private land.

Blackberry Uses

Once you have your blackberries at home, give them a good, gentle rinsing under cold water. Use a large collander, and spread berries out on paper towels to dry. I actually have a large, clean mesh screen that I use for my berry rinsing and drying. I found this screen for 69 cents at Goodwill, but you can easily make one of your own, of of window screen mesh, stapled to four strips of wood.

Set aside berries for immediate use. Freeze or dehydrate the rest. Or make your own jam preserves with the bounty.

You can use fresh or frozen berries over ice cream, in smoothies, in Blackberry Margeritas (Use berry vodka and a rim of sugar crystals), in pies, cobblers and tarts, and, of course, in the raw for a snack.

Dehydrated berries are great in trail mixes, tossed into fresh green salads with a vinegar-type dressing, or rehydrated for more traditional uses. You can use dehydrated blackberries in potpourri and for other crafting ideas.

Pickled blackberries are another gourmet option to consider experimenting with. Or make your own blackberry wine and blackberry vinegars!

Mouthwatering Berry Recipes

Buying Used Blankets and Comforters - Washing

If you find a great blanket, quilt or down comforter at a garage sale or thrift shop, you can probably get it quite clean once you get home.

I would use a cold wash to remove any possible previous protein-based spills or stains (heat might ’set’ them). You can follow up with a warm or hot wash afterward, if you are still paranoid about getting the item really clean. Wash your bedding on a delicate setting (never agitate - they might rip).

It’s best to line-dry blankets or cotton-batting comforters, or you can run them in a large dryer on low or no heat.

For down comforters, you need to decide if you want to clean it yourself or take it for dry-cleaning. I don’t like dry-cleaning - it puts toxic chemicals into bedding that I might be breathing in all night.

To hand wash a down comforter, place the item in a bathtub filled with cold water and a TINY amount of liquid detergent - something like 1/8 or even 1/16 of a cup. Otherwise you will never get the soap out. Gently hand-agitate the comforter for five or ten minutes and drain the water. Refill with clean cold water to remove the suds and drain again.

Do not wring! You can squeeze water out (like a toothpaste tube, from one end to the other), and place your wet comforter over the backs of chairs until dry. It will be heavy. Be careful to protect the down batting while drying, so it doesn’t all collect at one end (which will render your comforter useless).

For handmade quilts that you intend to use, you can follow the same instructions as for down comforters, being careful to protect the stitchery. You can probably tell if the quilt has been washed before. For really delicate quilts, or ones where you fear the colors will run, contact a dry-cleaners and get their opinion on whether it can be washed at all.

I would not wash used afghans if you wish to preserve their “newness” - ie, ones for display. Many nice thrift shop afghans have only been set out as a sofa throw. For afghans that have obviously been around the block, you can try a delicate cycle with cold water and line dry. Try using a Woolite-type detergent, which is more gentle with fabrics than most detergents.

Buying Used Comforters and Blankets - Shopping

I love finding a cozy, clean, quality blanket or comforter to take home for snuggling. You can find some excellent used ones if you keep your eyes open.

The best prices for used comforters are at garage sales, where you can usually snag one for under $5. At the thrift shops, prices usually start at $7, and are more often found between $10-20 for the better ones.

When I shop the colored tag sale days at Goodwill, the Salvation Army or Savers, I always head right to the blankets. If you are persistant, you can find gorgeous down comforters, handmade quilts, colorful afghans and soft, thick blankets for a song.

Always start by using your fingers to feel the ‘hand’ - the heft and texture - of the cloth. Does the blanet feel good to the touch? Look for the tag - you want to see high or all cotton fabrics. Cotton wears well and won’t be scratchy or pill (like polyester and some wool/acrylic blends do).

Next, smell the fabric. It should smell laundered, or, at least, have no smell at all. If you are satisfied on these counts, then take the blanket off the hanger or shelf, unfold, and examine both sides. Don’t be afraid to spread it all out right where you are. How else are you going to see the whole thing?

You are looking for rips and stains. Don’t buy stained or ripped bedding unless you are A. sure you can get the stain out, or B. willing to fix a ripped seam or mend a tiny hole.

I feel there are so many nice blankets to hunt for and find that I don’t need one needing any extra cleaning or sewing…unless you LOVE the blanket in question. In that case, you can usually talk the price down by showing the stain or rip to the seller, and asking if they can come down on the price. Always be very courteous when asking. No one HAS to give you a better price, although it might be in everyone’s best interests to do so.

Once you are home, you can clean your ‘new’ used bedding, and spread your nice finds in your guest or master bedroom!

Buying Used Sheets and Pillowcases - Washing

If you are like me, you get a thrill from discovering used luxury-level bedding and linens. I have a whole linen closet bursting with Egyptian cotton sheets, combed Pima cotton pillowcases, and the like. They feel luxurious with their superior cotton blends and higher thread counts.

And while they don’t match exactly, they each have that look of faded roses that intermingles so well on my bed. I love looking at and touching each and every sheet, sham, duvet and pillowcase I find.

Of course, buying used linens comes with its own set of potential hazards. While you can outfit your bed on a bare-bones budget, you want to make sure the new-to-you linens are clean.

First, in the thrift store, or at the yard sale, give the sheets (or whatever) the Sniff Test. Do the sheets smell bad? Do they smell like urine? You don’t want anything offensive for YOUR bed, but be aware a simple dirty sheet can be washed.

Then open the sheets and eyeball them. Are there any stains? Dirt or food stains can come right out, but you won’t want to buy anything used with blood stains on them, for sanitary reasons.

Once bought, take a good look at your finds. A good cold soak and subsequent cold wash will remove any chance of setting a stain from biological components like urine, vomit or blood. Presoak with laundry detergent before running the cycle. Use a tiny bit of bleach in your cold wash (remember, these are used sheets, and a small amount of bleach isn’t going to harm them).

If you are worried about getting the sheets really clean, then follow up your cold wash with a good hot wash. The cold wash will help remove protein stains and the hot wash will assist with removing various forms of dirt and body oils that sheets can pick up. Hot washes make your bedding as sanitary as they can get.

If the sheets have a very high thread count, like 280 or over, you can decrease the amount of agitation they will undergo by using a delicate cycle option, and drying the sheets with low or no heat. This will prolong their life.

If you have run the sheets through both washes, you will end up with really clean luxury bedding that you do not have to fear to use.

Become a Personal Shopper

ike to shop? Wish you could do it for a living? Don’t let your talents go to waste - learn to earn by shopping for others. How to Become a Personal Shopper, an e-book by Fabjob.com, makes it seem easy to fine-tune your shopping savvy into making the grade as a professional.

Interesting chapters discuss how to spot fashion trends, how to present yourself, how to find clients and help them define their needs.

Clientele can vary, depending on your local demographic and personal inclinations. Grocery shopping for the elderly, picking up school supplies for harried mothers, and buying holiday gifts for busy CEOs are all options you can consider, according to author Laura Harrison McBride.

Some tips from the book:

• If you go into business for yourself, the name you choose helps determine the client demographic you can attract.
• A catchy, professional phone message, on a dedicated phone line, will help your home business show a classy image.
• As a personal shopper, you need to present the image you want your clients to admire. This means wearing fashionable outfits are part of your job description
• There are endless niches in this business. You could specialize in helping professionals aquire a power wardrobe, shop for people planning vacations (and other concierge-type services), buying corporate gifts or selecting a week’s worth of gourmet foods.
• Window shopping is crucial to success in this career. You need to know what’s available, what’s on sale, and where to find what potential clients might need on a moment’s notice.

One thing I like about the Fabjob books are the depth of information they provide to making a change to new careers. They provide actual samples you can use as templates, including -

• Sample resume
• Sample of what to say when talking to a prospective client
• Sample list of questions to ask vendors
• Sample list of questions to ask new clients
• Sample client information
• Sample invoice
• Sample contract

Their website also offers tons of free content about job changing in our current economy. This article outlines questions to ask yourself if you are considering a career change.

The e-book costs $29.95. You pay online and the book arrives at your email address a just few minutes later. Not a bad deal in this world of instant gratification.

FabJob.com publishes e-books (and a number of books in print) that can help you break into a “fab” job. Visit Fabjob.com for information or to purchase a copy of the aforementioned book.