6 Uses of Ice We Bet You Never Knew

If you have a bag of ice in the freezer and are only using it for drinks, you’re missing out on some of the more creative uses for these frosty cubes. If you have a freezer at home, or even better, the best portable ice maker you can carry around with you, then these tips will be ideal for making your day to day more simple.

Watering your plants

This is particularly useful for your hanging baskets that are a bit of a pain to water. Rather than reaching up with the watering can, simply add a handful of ice cubes to the top of the soil and wait for them to melt. This will water the plant gradually, as well as being much more convenient. For an extra pro tip, use this method to keep your hard to water Christmas tree alive for as long as possible.

Smooth out the carpet.

As you push furniture about a room, you may find that the table or sofa leaves a dent in the carpet from where it was sat. This can spoil the look of a room, but there’s a simple way to fix this with our trusty cold friends. Simply place the ice cube on the dent and wait for it to melt. You can then give it a good scrub and watch the dent disappear.

Iron your clothes.

As well as taking the dents out of carpets, ice can also be used to remove the creases from your clothes. Take an ice cube and wrap it in a cloth, and then rub this over the crease. Grab your iron and go over the area, and the crease will be no more.

Get gum out of…anything.

There’s nothing worse than a distressed daughter getting back from school crying because she has gum stuck in her hair. What’s almost as bad is getting gum anywhere else on your person. The best thing to do in this situation is to grab an ice cube and start to freeze the gum. As it hardens, you’ll be able to scrape the gum off, or break it out of whatever it has become stuck to.

Make the medicine go down.

If you have a particularly potent bottle of medicine you’re trying to get your children (or yourself) to the stomach, try using ice to numb the pain. Take a cube of ice, and have your particular ill person suck on it for a while. This will numb the taste buds and make the medicine go down much more easily.

Remove a splinter.

Getting a splinter out of your finger, or especially a child’s finger, is one of the more difficult at-home surgeries that can happen. The best tactic is to grab a sterilized needle and use this to poke the splinter out. If this is proving to be too painful, try icing the area first to numb the pain and make the procedure go more smoothly. You can read more lifestyle tips here.