It's said that to remove onion smell from your hands, place your fingers on the handle of a stainless steel spoon, then run cold water over your fingers. Another method to remove strong odors from your hands is to apply some ordinary underarm deodorant to your hands and rinse off after five minutes — it should work for bleach odors, too.
Three Tricks for Taming Onion and Garlic Odors
If you cook at home you're doing yourself a favor. Not only is cooking a great skill to have, but home-cooked food is usually better for you, cheaper and tastes better. And any cook worth their salt knows how to use two of the most important ingredients in almost any cuisine: onions and garlic. But while they are delicious, they are also odiferous, so keep these tips in mind the next time you use these pungent aromatics.
Onion odor
Garlic odor
While garlic is great for cooking, it's not so great for socializing. To remove garlic odor from your hands, take a handful of cool, used coffee grounds, rub them into your hands well, then rinse off. Similarly, to reduce garlic breath, just pop a coffee bean into your mouth and chew.
Don't waste your potato peels
It's estimated that the average family's annual discarded potato peels amount to the iron provided by approximately 450 eggs, the protein of 50 steaks, and the vitamin C you get from 100 glasses of orange juice. Instead of peeling potatoes, scour them with a metal sponge and rinse well — it's quick, easy and saves valuable nutrients close to the skin. If you must peel potatoes, pour boiling water over them just before peeling to allow you to peel thinly and easily.
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This edition is part of the Genius House Hacks archive — 20+ years of tips, rebuilt from the original Handy Hints newsletter. Browse more hacks →