Vaseline is cheap and useful and most of us know it as a great lubricant. Most commonly we buy little tubs of it to use as lip balm and moisturize lips. But vaseline can be used in a myriad of different ways so here are some its hacks that you can use in various aspects of life from beauty to gardening.
1. Vaseline is a great moisturizer, so you can use it not only to moisturize your lips, but also your hands, your elbows, or any part of your body really. It’s particularly great for moisturizing dry feet. Just rub a healthy helping of vaseline on freshly washed and dried feet and put on some soft fuzzy socks. By morning your feet should be as soft as a baby’s bottom.
2. Vaseline is also amazing for moisturizing tattoos as they’re healing. But even old tattoos look refreshed and shiny after you rub on a layer of vaseline on them.
3. Since vaseline is great for moisturizing skin, it also works wonders for leather. You can use it instead of shoe polish or spruce up an old battered leather jacket and bring it back to life.
4. For those of you who like self-tanning vaseline can come in handy too. Rub it on places that you don’t want to tan and it’ll act as a shield, protecting you from unwanted spots and smudges.
5. Similarly you can use vaseline to protect your ears, forehead, neck and shoulders when dying your hair.
6. Speaking of tanning, you can also mix together bronzer with vaseline to create a solution that will both moisturize your skin and add a nice glow to it as well.
7. Vaseline is also great for fixing stuck zippers, just rub a little onto the zipper and it should go smoothly from that point on. You can even use it as a preventative measure and put vaseline on zippers that tend to get stuck.
8. You can use vaseline to protect your gardening tools (or any metal tools really) from corrosion by rubbing some Vaseline on the surface. It’ll repel water and protect from rust too.
9. Vaseline can also be used as a key ingredient in homemade scrubs. Mix it with rough sea salt for a great body scrub. Or a little bit of vaseline with sugar for a lip scrub. It’s cheap and works just as well as any store-bought scrub would.
10. Here’s a unique hack for Halloween enthusiasts. If you want your carved out pumpkins to last a bit longer — rub vaseline on the inside, it should protect the pumpkin from rotting or drying out too quickly.
11. Vaseline is a great solution for ant problems. If you have an ant problem at home, find the spot where they enter your home and simply smear that opening closed with vaseline. The jelly is so dense that ants just won’t be able to crawl through it. Similarly, petroleum jelly is a great option for saving plants that are being eaten by ants in your garden. Just smear vaseline on the stalk and the ants won’t be able to climb up a plant and eat it.
12. Vaseline is also a good option for those who can’t seem to grow out their eyelashes. Sure, you can buy expensive serums, but vaseline works about the same. Just use a spoolie to put it on your eyelashes and it’ll moisturize and protect them, which will help them grow long and healthy. You can also use vaseline as clear mascara.
13. Everyone knows a good old hack of taking off a stuck ring by using vaseline, but did you know you can also use vaseline to put in an earring? Putting on earrings after you haven’t worn them for a while can be quite a challenge. Just rub some petroleum jelly on the earring itself and on the whole in the earlobe and it should slip in easily.
14. Create homemade lip balm by simply mixing kool-aid with vaseline in a small container. You can customize the color by picking the flavor of kool-aid. It’s easy, cheap and delicious.
15. You can also use vaseline to remove gum from hair. Try it next time you or your child gets gum in their hair. It can save you from having to chop it off.
16. If you love perfume but it doesn’t last long on your skin, try dabbing some vaseline on the spot before you spray it with perfume. It should really help the perfume stay on longer.
