Putting Viral Life Hacks To The Test

What It Is: Mashed potatoes out of potato chips
What You Need: Boiling pot of water and potato chips 
Does It Work: Yes

Potato chips are not the healthiest of snacks, but they are certainly tasty and totally addictive. In the famous tagline of Pringles, once you pop, you can’t stop! The question is if they can be turned into mashed potatoes and the answer is surprisingly, yes. Simply pour a bag of potato chips into boiling water and let them get mushy. Remove excess water and mash to the right consistency.

Chips into mash @somo/Youtube.com

While this technically works, it is not necessarily recommended. Firstly, potato chips contain more calories and more ingredients than just potatoes making this option less healthy. Secondly, the verdict is that while it is possible to achieve the correct consistency, boiling the chips removes most of the flavor so you will need to add butter and seasoning.  Perhaps sticking to real potatoes is better in this case. 

What It Is: Sprite to revive flowers 
What You Need: Sprite 
Does It Work: No

The theory is that Sprite will bring your faded flowers back to life. But do flowers really like sugary drinks? And if not, what can we use that will actually work? The answer is, perhaps predictably, no. Flowers will not be brought back to life from consuming a bottle of soda. 

Use Sprite to Revive Your Faded Flowers ©daizuoxin / Shutterstock.com

What will help is plant food or a teaspoon of sugar, which is perhaps the origin of this myth being that Sprite is sugary. Another good tip is to cut your stems and make sure the water is clean. Keeping your flowers cool is also very important, and while you’re at it you can keep yourself cool by drinking that bottle of sprite rather than pouring it in your flowers. 

What It Is: Antiseptic used to remove marker stains 
What You Need: Antiseptic or hand sanitizer 
Does It Work: Yes 

Anyone with kids will know the horror of a child drawing with permanent marker on the table or the walls. One theory is that antiseptic will remove the stain, but isn’t a permanent marker permanent? In this case, no! The antiseptic is actually proven to remove stains. 

Antiseptic to Remove Permanent Marker

Rubbing alcohol or even hand sanitizer will do the trick as it breaks down the chemicals in permanent inks. Stain on your table? Fear not! Just grab that sanitizer or antiseptic and rub it on. This will work on both porous and non porous surfaces. 

What It Is: Tennis ball to open a car door 
What You Need: A tennis ball 
Does It Work: Yes

That sinking feeling when you realize you’ve locked your keys in your car and you don’t know what to do about it. A locksmith costs a small fortune and takes ages to arrive, breaking the window causes a huge mess and then you’d have to go to the trouble of getting a new window which also costs a fortune.

Use Tennis Ball To Unlock Car Door @marlievez / Pinterest.com

If you’re lucky enough you will have a tennis ball lying around, because the trick to open your car door using a tennis ball seems to actually work! You’ll need to burn a hole into the tennis ball and take the side with the hole and put a lot of pressure onto the lock by smashing it down. The suction from the ball will create enough pressure to open the door and it doesn’t cost you a dime!

What It Is: Expanding cookies using hairdryers 
What You Need: A hairdryer and a cookie 
Does It Work: Very unfortunately not 

Wouldn’t it be great if we could take a hairdryer to our favorite sweet treats and they would expand to several times the size? Talk about five for the price of one! If that were the case in the future a hair dryer would be automatically fitted in the kitchen as we would want to expand all of our food. In fact it could be the solution to world hunger!

Cookie Cream Hack @buzzfeed / Pinterest.com

Unfortunately though this hack is more trick than treat and it in fact does not work. Blowing hot air towards a cookie will simply warm up the cookie, no more and no less. Cookie cream hack has gone up in smoke, unfortunately! 

What It Is: Using concealer to color your hair 
What You Need: Concealer
Does It Work: Yes

Essentially hair dye is made of pigment among many other things, and so it’s no secret that a pigment based cosmetic could be used to temporarily color your hair. Those among us with grey hair may have heard of powder root touch up between coloring, which is basically pigment to cover grey until you can get to the salon next.

Color Your Hair With Concealer ©tiktok.com

There is no reason why concealers should not be functional as well. Simply apply the concealer to your hair and consider it a blank slate on which you can apply any color you like! The sky’s the limit, and the best part is when you are done you can simply wash it off. No commitment, no fuss. 

What It Is: Lemon to remove highlighter 
What You Need: Lemon
Does It Work: Yes 

Are you studying and using highlighter in your work books? It is so helpful to highlight relevant and important bits so you know what to come back to later on. But what if you slip and make a mess? Or accidentally highlight the wrong section? It’s not like you can use white out to remove it, but you can use lemon! 

Lemon to Remove Highlighter Hack @family_handyman / Pinterest.com

All you need to do is take a cue tip and squeeze a drop of lemon on it. Rub the lemony cue tip over the highlighter you would like to remove and it’s really as easy as that! The best part is that it won’t affect the printed writing in the book at all, it will only lift the highlighter. No mess, no fuss! 

What It Is: Turning graphite into diamonds 
What You Need: A microwave 
Does It Work: No

There is an old phrase that goes:”My mamma didn’t raise no fool”. This is a great example of when that phrase might be useful. Let’s be honest, if it were so simple to make a diamond, everyone would own many diamonds and they would as a result be worthless.

Graphite Turns to Diamond in the Microwave @robertlevinson3 / Pinterest.com

For the purpose of this article though, we felt it necessary to clarify: putting graphite into the microwave most certainly does not turn it into a diamond. In fact it is quite dangerous and could cause a fire. In short: if anyone tells you they know how to make diamonds quickly, they are most likely wrong. 

What It Is: Curls with a bottle 
What You Need: Plastic bottle and a hairdryer 
Does It Work: Yes

Going to the hair salon to get your hair styled is time consuming and expensive. Achieving those perfect salon curls at home is a seemingly impossible task though and ends up taking double the time with half the results. This hack claims to achieve gorgeous curls using a cut open plastic bottle and a hairdryer. 

Use a Pop Bottle to Curl Your Hair @preventionmag / Pinterest.com

You will need a hairdryer with a nozzle and to cut a hole in the bottle to fit the nozzle quite precisely. Take a section of your hair and put it into the top of the bottle which you’ve cut open and turn on the hairdryer. Be sure to have it on a medium setting as you don’t want the bottle to melt. Your hair will spin around the bottle like a hurricane which will result in a lovely curl! 

What It Is: Using bug spray to clean grime off headlights 
What You Need: Big spray and dirty headlights 
Does It Work: Yes

Headlights accumulate an enormous amount of dirt and eventually the color of the plastic becomes yellow or even brown. Simply wiping them off with a window cleaner might remove the surface dirt, but how do you really clean the plastic once it’s absorbed the dirt over time? One theory is bug spray, and the theory is correct! 

Bug Spray For Your Headlights @ChrisFix / Youtube.com

Bug spray will remove deeply ingrained dirt from your headlights, but be warned: it does eat away at the plastic. The preferred method is to spray the bug spray onto a paper towel and then clean the headlights. If you spray directly onto the lights this could cause damage. 

What It Is: Open a can of coke with a stick 
What You Need: A stick such as a chopstick 
Does It Work: Yes

If you’ve seen videos floating around with people opening cans of Coke using a stick and wondered if it really works, the answer is yes it does! And how? Well it’s the heat generated by the friction which causes the metal to expand and buckle. The pressure inside the can is higher than the atmosphere, causing the lid to open outwards! 

Open A Coke With A Stick @5-Minute Crafts GIRLY / Youtube.com

This is not the only way to open a can if the tab snaps off though, you can simply use another tool such as a spoon or a stick to push the tab down. That might not look as fancy, but you will still enjoy your can of Coke without a tab! 

What It Is: Shaving cream as a cleaning agent
What You Need: Shaving cream and a stained carpet 
Does It Work: No

Carpets make a home cozy and inviting, but can be an absolute nightmare to keep clean. There is a viral video going round on social media which showed a bowl of tomato pasta horrifyingly dropped on the lovely white carpets causing a red stain. What did they use to clean it? Shaving cream! 

Shaving Cream to Clean Carpets @ehow / Pinterest.com

In the video the shaving cream was poured over the stain and once removed, the stain magically disappeared. Is it true though? The answer is quite simply, no! Shaving cream is absolutely not a cleaning agent for carpets. For tricky stains run for the soda water instead. 

What It Is: Ketchup to clean metal 
What You Need: Ketchup
Does It Work: Yes

You may have heard that ketchup cleans metals like copper and silver. This is in fact true! If you happen to have silverware or copper items that have become tarnished over time, this is the perfect solution. Simply pour some ketchup directly onto the piece or on to a cloth, let it sit for a few minutes and clean it off. 

Ketchup to Clean Metal @heartofficial / Pinterest.com

How does this work exactly? Over time copper and silver accumulate carbon buildup and change color, looking dirty. Ketchup happens to be highly acidic. With a pH of 3.85 it breaks down carbon which is what causes metal to tarnish, leaving them good as new!

What It Is: Mascara made from cookies 
What You Need: Many things including cookies and primer 
Does It Work: No

Supposedly for those days you find yourself in desperate need for mascara but you don’t have any with you: If you happen to be in possession of some rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, Oreos as well as some face primer, a plastic bag, a spoon and some water you might be able to create your own mascara! Seems likely or worth the effort? Perhaps not – but the real question is: does it work!

Make Mascara from Oreos ©inkanya Anankitrojana / Shutterstock.com

The answer quite simply is: NO! Mixing crushed Oreos with water and face primer does not create a replacement for mascara. Applying food stuff onto your eyelashes is probably not such a good idea either. It’s probably a better idea to stick to regular makeup that has been tested and is safe for our skin and eyes.