Lifehacks

I wanted my security deposit back but the tub was already orange and stained when we moved in.

luckily, I knew the toothpaste trick.

1. while whatever your cleaning is bone dry, squeeze a little toothpaste on the discolored area.

2. spread it out with a disposable plastic glove or whatever, make sure that the toothpaste is rubbed in and touching all the discolored parts.

3. wait an hour or four. waiting is optional, it just makes it easier to clean off later.

4. use a damp cloth to clean off the toothpaste and the orange, yellow whatever stains from your tub, shower, countertop or toilet.

5. repeat as needed, it won't take many applications to have your fixture looking new.

any tile or anything with a glossy finish is fine to use toothpaste on, and the plastic shower and tubs are made out of is fine and won't be damaged.

get that deposit back for the price of a tube of toothpaste.

honorable mention:

are you in 1999 and your CD keeps skipping?

toothpaste!

Thank you [email protected] community!

tldr: baking/steaming garlic in the peel is the clear winner for volume clove peeling.

Crushing is the winner for a couple cloves in a stir-fry, root end cut is obviously better for garlic chips.

The last garlic peeling post had so many good suggestions that I decided to trial each of them at least a few times with fresh/older bulbs of different shapes and sizes.

One method worked in any situation.

For peeling as many cloves as you want, each technique had some major cons except for the final, winning method put forward by @[email protected] !

The results were:

Smashing -

pros: easy, classic technique. usually works.

cons: peel can get stuck inside a smash, you still have to pull off the peel, occasionally the peel is still stuck to the skin, cloves are damaged.

Slicing off root end and peeling -

pros: easy, faster

cons: still have to manually peel it, much faster but not fast.

Garlic roller -

pros: I cannot find one. Sometimes works?

cons: can only roll a couple of cloves at a time, much more effort than other methods, have to either cut off the ends first or later, so you're doing all the work without any benefit. These are a no for me, dawg.

Shaking -

pros: fun to do, does work for more than half the cloves of large batches using two aluminum popcorn bowls for a minute of shaking.

cons: a LOT of effort, bruises the cloves before cooking, very messy, juice everywhere, inevitably doesn't peel every clove, so you have to spend time hand peeling the leftovers, even with prep work of slicing off top and root end.

WINNER is root end cut and steaming or roasting in peel as suggested by @[email protected]:

pros: least effort, safest, cooking is already done, fastest and simplest clove peeling, no bruising beforehand, least messy

Method:

Cut off root end.

Steam(~10 minutes) or bake(400 degrees ~30 min) as much garlic as you want.

Let garlic sit for a few minutes to cool down.

Pinch the top end of each peel and the clove will pop out easily, discard peel.

Mash the garlic together and season however you like for a garlic dip.

pet urine, whiskey, perfume, you can use white vinegar to get rid of most smells on most materials: carpets, furniture, clothes, without damaging the material.

vinegar is amazing at breaking down odors and then evaporating and not leaving a trace.

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The peel is thicker and attached firmly to the root, so cutting off the root end first will save a lot of time and effort peeling garlic.

you can avoid stripping the peel into tiny sticky pieces or digging grooves into the clove while you gouge or scrape off the peel from the top or side.

this is another lifehack I would have appreciated learning years earlier.

If your shower is spraying in different directions or looks kind of gross, that's almost always mineral buildup.

pour a few cups of white vinegar in a plastic bag, dunk the shower head in there, leave it alone for a few hours, and it'll come out clean.

you can shake it every hour to make sure the vinegar gets everywhere and the broken down minerals get out of the way, but it's not really necessary.

I soak overnight sometimes, but that's usually not necessary.

White vinegar leaves no residue, no smell, won't damage your rubber or plastic seals, is cheap and safe to use.

vinegar is crazy useful, I'm sure it'll make a reappearance in this community soon.

for clarification - this is the everyday, supermarket 5 to 6% acetic acid white vinegar, all the normal cheap stuff at the supermarket is that balance. Not agricultural vinegar, which has a much higher acidic level(up to 50%) and will damage anything you put it on.

tldr: yes it works; brita filters don't filter out alcohol and do filter out particulates.

set one filter aside in the fridge for your booze of choice, put it in the pitcher when it's time, filter your booze a few times, put the booze filter back in the fridge and use your high quality liquor for whatever you want.

this came about while I was in China because their 白酒, rice liquor, was the worst spirit I had ever tasted.

I have tasted a $5,000 bottle and a $5 bottle of 白酒 and the difference is negligible, both hovering around "wastewater" level.

I remember hearing about this lifehack and so I gave it a try with the Chinese rice liquor and after filtering it one time I could drink it like any medium shelf liquor, whereas before the filtering it literally smelled like rubbing alcohol and I'd want to immediately vomit taking a shot.

so I started testing other alcohols and doing blind taste tests with friends, and literally every single time, and I did a couple dozen blind taste tests, people voted the filtered liquor tasted better.

i started filtering vodkas and gins a lot for my own drinks or parties.

it works with any alcohol since brita filters don't filter out alcohol.

My filters lasted for months, I kept them bagged in the fridge until I filtered a new bottle, poured the vodka through the filter half a dozen times and then put the vodka filter back in the fridge.

It's a simple, easy way to get high quality vodka or gin for mixers and a great way to get any shitty alcohol tasting much better.

Heat up a pot of water(i use a brining pot) to a simmer, pour it down any drain and that clog is gone.

You don't need to boil anything and the exact temperature does not matter.

fill a big pot with tap water, heat it up to a near simmer, dump it directly down the drain.

That'll give the clog a good punch and the weight of the next gallon or two you heated up will get rid of the rest of it.

Not sure if this applies. But if you lie down on a bed, most manufacturers will put bed sheet tags on the bottom right of your sheets. I always removed those tags like shirt/jeans tags but now it gives you a starting point putting on fitted and loose sheets. Sorry I just became an adult at the age of 42

when tax time comes around, you fill out an IRS form called the FEIE, the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.

Check the "physical presence test" box, fill out your total income for that year, then write down the dates that you were not in the United States and where you were.

10 minutes, one extra form, no income taxes.

This is one of my most consistently used life hacks.

key rings are extremely durable, perfectly shaped to pull on, better than regular zipper tabs most of the time, keyrings are the perfect replacement.

Anytime I see a good key ring, I pop it into my tools pocket for the next failed zipper tab.

I buy all of my bags second hand because if they are missing a zipper tab, they're deemed useless and sold for a couple of dollars even if they're otherwise brand new.

If I need a bag of a specific type, I go around the thrift stores, find the exact bag/suitcase I want that's new but missing a couple zipper tabs, and after I buy it and take it home, throw a couple key rings on and have exactly the bag I want.

I've actually made more than a few connections with people because their suitcases broke and I had an "aha" fix ready to go for them.

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I've been looking for a simple solution to keep my wallet, phone, and Bluetooth headset dry and secure while I'm swimming, but every waterproof bag was either very tiny, very difficult to open and push things into because of the tacky plastic coating, or expensive and only useful for one purpose.

After scoping out the options at sports stores, I realized I already had a very strong, lightweight polyester day bag so I went bought a large round screw-top container with a rubber gasket and I was done.

easy to put everything in and take everything out, very good seal.

Took it into some crashing waves for an hour with my phone, wallet, and t-shirt inside(and some tissue papers so that I could periodically check if any water was getting in) and the thing works like a charm.

Bonus buoyancy means I can use the container as a small pillow while floating

The water was pretty busy today, but I'll definitely have to try floating again, the neck pillow was very comfortable during the short test runs i was allowed.