The Best Aluminum Foil Tricks You Shouldn’t Ignore Anymore
Aluminum foil is an essential item in every kitchen. But if you’re only using this cooking staple for the basic purpose of wrapping your baking sheets, you’re missing out on a huge range of handy aluminum foil applications. Much like duct tape, aluminum foil has a nearly endless assortment of purposes that can make your life just a bit easier.
From cleaning to crafts, take a look below at the best aluminum foil hacks you shouldn’t ignore anymore.
1 Keep Your Bananas Fresh
Bananas are such a yummy, easy-to-eat snack. Unfortunately, they also go bad really quickly. After a few days of lying out on your kitchen jcounter, your bananas will start to brown. Once that happens, no one will want to eat them. If you need to keep your bananas fresher longer, turn to aluminum foil.
Wrap a small piece of aluminum foil around the stem of your bananas. By breaking off part of the banana’s contact with the air, you can slow the decaying process that plagues these fruits. A little piece of aluminum foil can lead to longer days of ripe, yellow, ready-to-eat fruit.
2 Iron Faster
When you’re ironing your clothes, you usually have to go over the same area multiple times before you finally achieve that wrinkle-free look. Much of the heat you’re using is sucked up by the actual ironing board, forcing you to run the iron over the same spot, again and again, to generate enough heat to get the job done.
Aluminum foil can solve that problem. Simply place a sheet of aluminum foil on your ironing board and slip your cover over it. The foil will reflect the heat rather than absorb it, allowing you to iron your clothes to wrinkle-free perfection much more quickly.
3 Clean Your Grill
While you can wrap your food in aluminum foil before you place it on the grill to keep your barbecue clean, that process is sometimes difficult when you’re cooking for a large group of people. If you do place food on your grill directly, you can still clean it all off with ease using aluminum foil.
Right after you’re done cooking, lay a sheet of aluminum foil over the hot grill. Next time you’re ready to use your barbecue, or after it’s completely cooled off, simply crumple up the aluminum foil and throw it away. It should scrape off any lingering foodstuffs and leave your grill ready for the next big barbecue.
4 Remove Static From Your Laundry
While aluminum foil has all kinds of nifty uses in the kitchen, it can also provide a little help in the laundry room. After washing your clothes and putting them in the dryer, you may notice that the most frustrating part of laundry day is dealing with the post-dryer static. Thankfully, aluminum foil provides a solution.
Before you start your dryer cycle, ball up a few pieces of aluminum foil to toss in with your load. Press the aluminum foil together tightly, and be sure that there are no sharp portions that could snag your clothes. Depending on the size of the load, you might want to use 2-3 aluminum foil balls instead of just one. The aluminum foil will get rid of that pesky static, leaving your clothes dry and ready to be put away.
5 Clean Your Iron
After years of regular use, you might notice that your iron has started to build up a healthy supply of dirt and rust. Once that happens, you can no longer iron your clothes with confidence, as the dirty device will leave marks all over your clean fabrics. Thankfully, aluminum foil provides an easy solution to clean your iron.
Simply crunch the aluminum foil into a ball and scrub the bottom of your hot iron. While the process might leave a few scratches, it will also remove all the build-up that has the potential to ruin your clothes. What are a few scratches in comparison to a clean, usable iron?
6 Move Your Furniture
When the furniture in your house is in one arrangement for a long time, you might find that you’re desperate for a change. Unfortunately, shifting your furniture often results in scratches along your floor. Is changing up your space worth the risk?
Well, it is with aluminum foil. Before you drag your furnishings across your house, put a small layer of foil underneath the legs of each piece. The foil will slide easily along the ground, protecting your floor from scratches and allowing you to rearrange your space with ease.
7 Storing Your Celery
Many people keep their celery in the refrigerator in the plastic bag in which they bought it, or directly in the fridge, without packaging. However, if stored this way, celery will quickly become dry and inedible.
The best way to store celery is to keep the celery heads whole, then wrap it tightly in aluminum foil before putting it in the refrigerator. This trick allows you not to lose the moisture from your celery, which will leave it fresh and crispy for 2 to 4 weeks.
8 Scrub Your Pots
Just like aluminum foil can remove built-up grime from your iron, it can also clean your pots and pans. If you have kitchenware that’s full of gunk you can’t manage to get off, aluminum foil might provide a solution.
Ball up a bit of aluminum foil and use it to scrub away at the muck inside your pans. It should remove the built-up crud fairly easily, leaving you with shining pans that look almost as good as new. Don’t settle for dirty kitchenware when cleaning with aluminum foil is so easy.
9 Make Your Own Stylus
For larger mobile tablets and even normal smartphones, styluses are now the must-have accessory. They’re on sale for quite a large chunk of change, but they open up new possibilities in using your device. If you don’t want to spend the cash, however, you can create your own stylus using a bit of aluminum foil.
Just take a regular pen or pencil and attach a bit of foil to the tip. The foil will allow the pencil to work with your device, creating an at-home stylus that works for every budget. Why fork over a wad of cash at the store when you can make your own stylus at home?
10 Create a Grease Catcher
Greasy dishes are always a treat, especially if you make them yourself. But while cooking your feast, you’re always faced with the problem of what to do with the leftover grease after your dish is done. If you toss it down the drain, it can create serious issues in your plumbing line. Instead of risking clogging your pipes, turn aluminum foil into an instant grease catcher.
When your dish is done, line a bowl with aluminum foil and pour the oil inside. Using aluminum foil allows you to quickly get rid of the grease, without forcing it to stick to your dining ware. When the grease cools, simply ball out the aluminum foil and throw it away. It’s that easy.
11 Create a Sun Box
Plants are perfect for adding a bit of life and color to the inside of your home. If you choose greenery that loves the sun, however, you have to place those plants near a window where they can consistently soak up the warm rays. Unfortunately, the sun always comes from one direction, and eventually the plants will start to lean towards the light.
If you want to feed your plants light from all directions, create a little sun box with aluminum foil. Remove the top and one side from a cardboard box and line the rest of the box with aluminum foil. Place all your sun-hungry plants inside and set the box near a window. This little trick will give your shrubs so much light that they may not know what to do with it.
12 Sharpen Your Scissors
Just like your kitchen knives, your favorite pair of scissors will start to go dull with continued use. While they’re used to cut through anything with ease, getting them to work correctly is now a struggle. But have no fear—aluminum foil presents a solution.
Take a few strips of aluminum foil and cut it with your scissors as many times as you can. After a few snips, you’ll start to notice that the edges of your scissors are sharpening once again. It’s the perfect way to restore your scissors without having to use any special tools that complicate the process.
13 Fry Perfect Eggs
If you’ve always struggled to fry the perfect egg, aluminum foil might be the solution. Before frying your egg, measure out a strip of aluminum foil over the pan you want to use. Then, line the inside of the pan with the aluminum foil, pressing down to make sure it conforms to the shape. Once that’s done, fill the aluminum foil with oil and heat the pan.
Cracking the eggs directly into aluminum foil will keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan. You’ll be able to easily flip and turn your eggs, ensuring they reach the right level of done-ness before taking them out of the pan. Plus, clean up is so much easier! When you’re done cooking, simply ball up the foil and throw it away—no soap needed!
14 Maintain Your Fireplace
While aluminum foil can fix many problems after they happen, it can also prevent problems before they occur. If you have a real wood-burning fireplace in your home, then you know how dirty it can get when the ashes settle. Aluminum foil keeps you from constantly picking up charred wood from the floor of your fireplace.
Create a double layer of aluminum foil that’s about as big as the wood grate in your fireplace. Slide it underneath the grate and allow it to sit there while your fire is burning. When the fireplace cools off completely, probably a full 12 hours later, you can simply wrap up the foil and throw it away. It’s the perfect no-hassle clean-up.
15 Extend Your Battery’s Lifespan
Dead batteries are one of life’s many inconveniences. While you can’t ensure that your batteries will last forever, you can extend their lifespan with a little aluminum foil. Put a small ball of aluminum foil at either end of your battery each time you put it in your device.
The aluminum foil will extend the lifespan, ensuring that you get all the juice you can from each little cell. The days of sighing in frustration when your TV remote dies won’t disappear completely, but they will be few and far between.
16 Protecting Your Child’s Mattress
A newborn does not pose too much of a problem in terms of nocturnal damage since it is wearing a diaper. However, when a child reaches the age where he or she is trying to get clean, it can become more of a problem. Fortunately, aluminum foil can save parents a lot of trouble!
If you don’t have a plastic mattress cover, cover your child’s mattress with several sheets of aluminum foil and place a large beach towel on top. Then, simply tie the whole thing up with the fitted sheet so that nothing moves while your child sleeps. If a leak occurs during the night, the mattress will be spared.
17 Keeping Your Bread Warm
Do you have a homemade delicious bread or cake you’d like to bring to your dinner tonight? To impress your family or friends even more by offering them something fresh and still warm, count on the aluminum foil.
As long as your bread or cake comes out of the oven and is still warm, wrap it in a piece of napkin and cover it with aluminum foil. Aluminum foil has the property of reflecting heat, so it will keep your bread or cake warm for a long time.
18 Reducing Joints Pain
Joint pain can be downright unpleasant and, above all, painful. Of course, there are different ways to relieve them, with medication, among other things, but once again, aluminum foil could help. In fact, wrapping your toes-or any part of your body that suffers from joint pain-will go a long way towards relieving the pain.
This technique is believed to have been used for a hundred years. Apparently, human organisms contain special stem cells that constantly interact with the Earth’s energy field. Aluminum foil helps to reflect this energy field, and thus, to restore the possible disrupted interaction that could occur in the stem cells and cause the pain.
19 Keep Insects Away
Household insects like to hide in dark, creepy places. If you search long enough in your kitchen cabinets, you’ll probably find a few unwelcome visitors. While using shelf liners is a common practice to keep your cabinets clean, aluminum foil is the best shelf liner of all.
Aluminum foil reflects light, which in turn drives away all the creepy-crawly creatures. By lining your cabinets with aluminum foil, you’re creating an environment where no insect wants to live. You’ll keep your kitchen safe from scavenging critters and you’ll keep your cabinets tidy and dust-free.
20 Clean Your Glue Gun
If you like crafting, you’ve probably used a hot glue gun on more than one occasion. It’s truly the most incredible adhesive. The hot glue that drips from the top can bond almost anything together, with little chance that the two properties will separate. Unfortunately, hot glue guns are also pretty messy.
After a few uses, a layer of dried glue builds up over the tip. Not only does it make the gun less effective, but it’s also a nightmare to get off. That is, unless you use aluminum foil. When the gun has cooled down, ball up a bit of aluminum foil around the tip and scrub it clean. It will easily remove any excess adhesive, leaving your gun clean and ready for the next use.
21 Improve Your Radiator
If you have a standard radiator that attaches to your wall, you may find that it’s not the most effective way to heat your house. A chunk of the heat is absorbed by the wall behind the radiator, which means much less warmth is actually circulating through your home. Aluminum foil can solve that problem.
Find a piece of cardboard almost as big as your radiator and wrap it in aluminum foil. Place the cardboard behind your radiator and feel the difference as heat pours into your home. The aluminum foil will reflect the heat rather than absorb it, ensuring that most of that warmth stays trapped inside, rather than escaping through the walls.
22 Fish Smarter
Taking up fishing as a hobby requires a lot of patience. Still, it’s a little frustrating when you spend hours on the water, only to come home empty-handed. Interestingly enough, aluminum foil might provide a solution.
It’s been proven that fish are attracted to light. While your bait is a tasty snack, a bit of reflected light might draw in more interested swimmers than a simple worm. Next time you head out on the water, attach a bit of aluminum foil to your hook. The foil will reflect the light in the water, naturally attracting fish to your rod. It sounds crazy, but it just might give you the catch you’ve been waiting for.
23 Polish Your Silver
If you have any silver in your house, you might notice that it loses its gleam after too many uses. Did you know aluminum foil solves that problem? Line a pan with aluminum foil, fill it up with cold water, and add a bit of salt. Then, put your silverware into the pan and let it sit for a few minutes.
When time is up, wash off the silverware and see it restored to its former glory. The aluminum paired with the salt and silver leads to a molecular exchange that polishes your silver pieces. But you don’t have to know the full science to put this trick into practice.
24 Baking a Perfect Pie Crust
Are you the kind of person who likes to bake all kinds of tasty pies, but always end up with pies that have a burnt crust on the edges? If that’s the case, we know it’s very frustrating. But aluminum foil will solve your problem!
Before putting your pie in the oven, take a sheet of aluminum foil and cover the entire circumference of your pie crust. The foil will prevent the edge of the crust from burning while the rest of your pie is golden brown.
25 Shield Your Doorknobs
If you’re into DIY projects in your home, you may find that you want to paint a few doors to add a splash of color to your space. But while you’re painting your door, you’re faced with the issue of protecting the doorknob from your new color. Painting tape is an okay solution, but it’s also time-consuming and difficult to wrap each strip around your circular doorknob.
Instead of wasting your precious time on that strategy, simply wrap a piece of aluminum foil tightly around the door handle. Then, use a knife to cut a perfect circle around the handle, ensuring that you get clean lines when you remove the foil. Once you’re done painting, you simply have to take the foil off to finish your project—it’s that easy.
26 Soften Brown Sugar
Most people don’t use brown sugar every day. This kitchen staple is more of a once-in-a-while necessity, rather than a daily need. After some time without use, however, your brown sugar can harden, making it difficult to remove any usable sweetener from the packet. If that happens, aluminum foil can help.
Wrap your hardened brown sugar in a small piece of aluminum foil and bake it in the oven for around five minutes. When you remove it, the sugar will be back to its soft state and you can proceed to use it as you normally would.
27 Preserve Your Snacks
Unless you buy a resealable bag, opening a packet of snacks is a dangerous decision. You run the risk that you won’t finish everything in the bag, but without a seal, the snacks might become stale and inedible. If you don’t want to overeat, but you still want to preserve your food, aluminum foil is the answer.
Once you’ve eaten what you want out of the packet, take a strip of aluminum foil and hold it over the opening. Then, heat the aluminum slightly with an iron to create a DIY seal. The heated foil will keep air out of the package, ensuring that everything inside stays fresh until you’re ready to nibble again.
28 Clean Your Jewelry
Aluminum foil cleans much more than silverware. While the handy kitchen staple polishes your tarnished pieces, it also refreshes your favorite jewelry. Cleaning your jewelry involves a similar process to cleaning your silverware, with a few key changes.
This time, line a bowl with aluminum foil and fill it with hot water. Then, add a bit of bleach-free, non-liquid laundry detergent. Put your jewelry in the bowl and let it soak for just a couple minutes. Once that’s done, you can rinse your trinkets off and lay them on a towel to dry. The molecular reaction should make your pieces noticeably cleaner.
29 Boost Your WiFi
While you may not be ready to invest in your own tin foil hat, a little tin foil around your wireless router can work wonders. If you find that your connection is weak, slow, and generally unreliable, aluminum foil might provide a solution.
Start by taking a simple piece of cardboard and covering it with aluminum foil. Then, put the flap around your router, ideally in the back where the cords plug in. The aluminum should provide a boost to your WiFi signal that will make your Internet more reliable. Connectivity problems will be gone!
30 Keep paint brushes wet
If you’ve ever used paint, you’ve probably noticed: paint dries very quickly on a brush, and once it does, it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to clean the brush properly. So it usually ends up with a dirty brush in the trash and the purchase of a new one.
But whether you are painting walls or canvas, avoid washing your brushes every time you take a break by wrapping them in a wet paper towel and a sheet of aluminum foil. This will prevent the paint to dry and ruin your brushes.
31 Line paint roller trays
Just as paint dries quickly on a brush, it dries at the same speed in your paint roller tray. And while it may seem easier to clean than a brush, it is still very difficult and unpleasant. Eventually, your paint roller tray will be so stained with paint that you will get rid of it.
But there is a pretty simple way to reuse your paint roller trays without having to clean them every time you use it, and without staining everything else around in the process. Just cover them with a few sheets of aluminum foil, and voilà!
32 Seal plastic bags
This easy trick is simply genius. If you ever need to seal a plastic bag to avoid losing your food or risking some accidents, you just have to place a long piece of aluminum foil on the area you wish to secure before applying a hot iron on it.
The heat of the iron will make the plastic of your bag melt while the piece of aluminum foil will prevent the plastic from sticking to the surface or the iron. This is a simple and effective way to seal your food at a really low cost!
33 Clean glass pans
Glass or Pyrex pans are an essential in every kitchen, and for pretty good reason. They are perfect for cooking anything in the oven. However, as soon as some of the food burns a little, it sticks and is difficult to dislodge from the pan.
But please note that frying pans are not the only kitchen tool aluminum will save from stubborn food residues. You can also make your glass or Pyrex pans shine with a simple ball of foil without having to scrub vigorously for hours.
34 Make perfect popsicles
If you’re in the mood for homemade popsicles on a hot summer day, well, please let yourself be tempted! But while you’ll probably be using your popsicle molds to make them, you should also consider using aluminum foil.
Tin foil will not only keep popsicle your popsicle sticks in place if your molds don’t have a lid. It will also help them to freeze more quickly and evenly. But that’s not all! The aluminum foil will also double as a drip catcher. Clever, isn’t it?
35 Use as a touchscreen
Let’s talk seriously here. Touchscreens are an absolutely great technology, but let’s say it once and for all: when it’s cold, it’s totally unbearable to use! Unless you buy gloves specifically designed to interact with your touchscreen, you absolutely have to take off your gloves and freeze your fingers off to use your phone.
But we have a really cheaper option for you. Surprisingly, touchscreens react to aluminum foil. So, you can only coat a pen or your finger with a bit of it in order to be able to use your smartphone while wearing regular gloves.
36 Remove Rust From Your Radiator With Ketchup
The older the radiator, the more rust it will inevitably accumulate, and once it reaches a certain point, it is extremely difficult to remove. However, you will be happy to know that a little ketchup and aluminum foil can remedy this problem!
All you have to do is apply a little bit of ketchup to the rusty parts of your radiator. Then, simply rub it with a ball of aluminum foil. In no time, and with very little effort, your radiator will be as good as new! Who would have thought?
37 Protect Your Plants
Vegetable gardens are a great way to explore a new hobby and hone your green thumb. But even the most experienced gardeners struggle to keep the insects away from their beloved plants. You can’t partake in the fruits (or vegetables) of your labor if the outdoor critters have gotten to them first.
When putting together your garden, mix strips of aluminum foil with your mulch. The foil will keep the insects away while simultaneously directing more light to your plants. Prepare some space in your fridge to accommodate your thriving vegetable garden if you use this trick!
38 Replace A Funnel
It is not uncommon to need to pour some liquid into another container. It can even be an almost daily action for many of us. However, depending on the tools used, pouring the liquid without getting it everywhere can be difficult, if not impossible. Some occasions simply require a funnel.
But what if you don’t have a funnel at home? Well, rest assured, you don’t have to go out and buy one! If you have aluminum foil at home, you can easily make your own funnel. All you need to do is take a sheet of aluminum foil and roll it into a cone shape. There you go! Now you can pour your liquids without making a mess.
39 Always Have A Clean Oven
What could be more unpleasant than having to clean the inside of your oven? Ugh! Cleaning the oven door is one thing, but the bottom? That’s one of the most unpleasant tasks ever. Not only is the bottom of the oven hard to reach, but getting the accumulated and stuck-on dirt out is no small task.
If you have aluminum foil at home, however, you can save yourself a big headache! Simply place a large sheet of aluminum foil in the bottom of your oven to cover it entirely. This way, all the food residues will collect on the foil. So, instead of scrubbing the bottom of your oven, next time, just remove the soiled foil and put a new one on!
40 Curl Your Hair
Almost every woman who doesn’t have naturally curly hair wants to curl it at some point, whether it’s in big curls or light beach waves. In all cases, however, the use of a straightening or curling iron can damage the hair in the long run because of the heat.
If you want to curl your hair on a regular basis, it’s best to use aluminum foil in the process. Luckily, it doesn’t get much easier than that! Simply place a piece of foil between your hair and your iron so that the heat is not directly applied to your hair. You’ll get just as beautiful results, but without damaging your hair!
41 Get Creative With Your Cakes
Everyone has cake pans at home for those moments when an uncontrollable urge to eat a dessert takes hold of us, or there’s an event to celebrate, right? But let’s face it, these moulds are all round or square. But what happens when you feel like making a change and getting creative to create a unique cake?
Fortunately, you don’t have to equip yourself with every mould shapes imaginable just to potentially use them once or twice. With aluminum foil, you can quickly make the mould in any shape you want to let your baking creativity run wild!
42 Protect Your Stove
Cooking can often take its toll, especially on your oven. If you have a glass-ceramic cooktop, your problems will be different. But if you have a good old stove with burners, cleaning the bottom of the burners can be difficult. Of course, it is always better to clean up food spills after they have just been made, but on an oven with hot rings, this is not possible.
So what can you do to save yourself long minutes of intense scrubbing later? Nothing too complex, rest assured! Just cover the top of your burners with aluminum foil, and you’re done. When they get too dirty, just throw away the aluminum foil and apply a new sheet.
43 Optimize Your Slow Cooker
Cooking your meals in a slow cooker is the perfect way to enjoy a good dish without the hassle. It’s simple, delicious, and doesn’t take up too much of your time when you’re in a hurry. However, you are a bit limited in the variety of meals you can cook at the same time. How do you make two different meals with one slow cooker?
Well, just by using aluminum foil! Simply create two different containers with your aluminum foil, so that you can fill the inside of your slow cooker, but still have 2 distinct sections. And there you have it. You can cook two of your favorite recipes at the same time!
44 Make Unmolding Easy
If you don’t bake cakes, brownies and other desserts in a mould very often, you probably have the same problem almost every time: removing your dessert from it is an impossible task without leaving pieces behind. And even if you follow all possible recommendations!
Well, aluminum foil will become your best friend the next time you want to bake your favorite dessert. Simply place a sheet of aluminum foil over the bottom and sides of your pan. Ideally, leave a bit of the foil hanging over the pan. That way, when your dessert is ready, you can just lift the foil and easily remove your dessert without any hassle.
45 Remove Nail Polish
Are you the kind of person who loves to put on nail polish, but usually gives up the idea the second you think of that unpleasant moment when you eventually have to take it off? We are! Removing nail polish can be really difficult, especially the darker the color applied.
Thanks to aluminum foil, however, never again stop yourself from putting on nail polish for this reason! The next time you have to remove your nail polish, take some cottons balls dipped in remover, and secure them to your nails with the foil. Leave it on for a few minutes, and you’ll see that you won’t have to scrub for several minutes to finally see your polish disappear.
46 Capture The Perfect Lighting
Do you like photography? After all, who doesn’t like to immortalize the most beautiful and wonderful moments of their life in photos? And what’s more, you don’t have to be a professional or have expensive equipment to take beautiful pictures. This simple and practically free tip will make your photos even more beautiful and bright!
The next time you try to take a picture of a person or a plate of food, for example, create a light reflector with a piece of cardboard and aluminum foil. Simply attach the paper to the cardboard and you’re done! Then place it at the right angle to illuminate your subject, and voilà! You’ll have a beautiful photo worthy of a professional.
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