Saturday, May 19, 2012

a vinegar adventure

here's my latest trial run. . . vinegar!   i use it for pickles all the time but that was about the limit.   

my mother-in-law started me using it to kill weeds.   it seemed to work ok but i think it takes a lot and i can't seem to keep a spray bottle functioning.   its a curse.

i've used it mixed with rubbing alcohol and water to clean glass and metal.   that works really well.

recently, i heard that you can mix it with baking soda to cool a burn.  that was a great discovery since i am an accident that doesn't wait to happen.   unfortunately, my kids are blessed with the same klutz talent as their mother.    so we tried this one out within a day of hearing about it.   btw, milk works pretty well, flour works if you keep it moving but takes a long time, frozen aloe leaves work but you have to change them out a few times so have several ready, used black tea bags work, but again, you have to keep it wet and keep adding new water or keep a piece of ice melting on it.

aaaaand back to vinegar . . .

the biggest vinegar adventure we've been on at our house has been the no shampoo revolution.   i have really long, really curly, really dry hair.   really really.   i had it sort of under control with no shampoo but lots of conditioner.   then we moved to germany and the water is so hard you can walk on it.   its horrible.   for the first time in my life, i had huge dandruff flakes, my hair was so dry i couldn't do anything with it but pull it back in a bun.    it was only getting worse and i was desperate.   i hear about the no shampoo thing and remembered my grandmother saying that her mother rinsed her blond hair in lemon juice and her sister's brown hair in vinegar.    basically, wash your hair with baking soda and rinse well with water then rinse with vinegar.     you have to experiment with the portions but the beginning formula seems to be 1 to 3 for both.   i use that for the vinegar rinse on my daughter's hair, no baking soda wash.   my teenage hair-so-greasy-its-oily-right-out-of-the-shower son uses a baking soda mix of a Tbs or so and enough water to make a loose paste.   he actually has hair again instead of  . . what ever that was on his poor hormone enhanced head.   i tip over and pour straight vinegar over my hair into a small bucket, then flip it over and rinse the front with what's in the bucket.   it was still dry but at least manageable.  i gave it a 3 egg/vinegar/olive oil rinse and smelled like egg salad all day but it made a huge difference.   now, i'm playing with coconut oil for the dry and so far its helping.

the wonderful thing about vinegar is that its so multi-purpose that i get more done.   after i rinse my hair in the shower, i put some vinegar on a sponge and wipe down the shower with it.   that hideously hard water was killing my shower as well.   i even cleaned out an old jar that was left in the basement.   it had so much hard water in it  that i thought it was etched.   the bottom was caked with a centimeter of rusty hard water deposits.   just for kicks, i put some vinegar in the bottom, then laid it on its side and kept it turning.   its totally clean!   i was shocked and wish i had taken a picture of it.   crazy!

now, what else can i do with this stuff?   bring it on! 

oh yeah, i use it as a rinse aid in my laundry for smells and soak orange peels in it to make a wood cleaner.   

alrighty!   got an update for ya!
the last couple of weeks, my tomboy princess had 2 teeth fall out within a few days of each other.  now, our tooth fairy . . well . . she gets lost, and is forgetful , and tends to take her sweet time taking teeth.   the first tooth sat for a few days before being picked up.   good thing my kids are patient.   right after the first one was picked up, another one came out.   the same glass was used and just got re-filled.   

 this might demonstrate how hard our water is for you.   the glass was filled and let dry twice.   yup, that's all it took to get this.   now, that's crazy hard water!


ok, this is what i did, just for ya'all.


i scrubbed the thing out with water and a scrubby sponge to see how much would come out.  then dried it out so you could see how much was left.    i hate those commercials that kind of slant the results.   

then i used some vinegar on the same sponge.   it would have come out a bit easier had i just let it sit, but i wanted it done fast so i scrubbed a little bit and dried it out.   point is, it took it all out.   totally dissolved it, glass clean, end of story.   i love vinegar!

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