15 Household Uses for Table Salt
by Darlene McFarlane on Jun 15, 2007 with 51 Comments
Thousands of years ago salt was a valuable commodity and was used in place of money. Salt was given to the parents of the groom until the 8th century and by the 12th century it was sold for it’s weight in gold. Salt has been used for many things through the years and in many ways but in our day we know it mostly for it’s ability to enhance the flavor of our food.
- Fresh eggs: Want to know if your eggs are fresh? Put an egg in a cup of salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh, if it floats it’s bad.
- Ants: Sprinkle salt at doorways, window sills and anywhere else ants manage to get into your house. Ants won’t walk across salt and they will stay outside where they belong.
- Cooking apples: You can improve the taste of cooking apples by adding a little salt.
- Mix – matched hose: Can’t find a pair of hose the same color? They will become the same color if you boil them in salted water.
- Oven mess: Ever have a problem with pies bubbling over while baking? Next time this happens, put enough salt on the mess to cover the spill. This will stop the burnt smell and will turn light and crusty from the oven’s heat so you can just wipe it off the oven floor when cool.
- Stop discoloring food: Apples and potatoes won’t discolor after peeling if you cover them in salted water.
- Frost: If you hang your clothes outside during winter, you will like this one. Use salt in your final rinse to keep your clothes from freezing on the line. You can also use salt water on your clothes line to keep it from freezing too.
- Shelling nuts: Nuts such as walnuts and pecans are easier to shell if they are soaked in salt water first.
- Artificial flowers: Clean artificial flowers by putting them in a bag containing salt. Shake bag for well for about one minute. Take flowers out, shake off excess salt.
- Boil water: Contrary to popular belief, salt added to water will not make it boil more quickly. Adding salt to water makes the water denser which raises the boiling point. Salted water takes longer to boil than unsalted water.
- Windows: Keep your home and car windows from frosting in the winter by wiping them with a mixture of salt and water.
- Cheese: To keep cheese from going moldy in your fridge, wrap it in a cheesecloth dampened with salt water.
- Fresh flowers: A pinch of salt added to the water of fresh cut flowers will make them last longer.
- Garden pests: If you find you have cabbage worms in your vegetable garden, make a mixture of 1 cup flour and half cup salt. Dust the garden morning and evening when they are damp with dew.
- Oral care: For cankers, abscesses and other mouth sores, rinse your mouth with a weak solution of warm salt water several times a day.
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Published in: Homemaking
JNV | Jun 15, 2007 | Reply
You just don’t stop now, do you?
Gail Nobles | Jun 15, 2007 | Reply
Yea, I use salt to kill snails. It can be used salt for cuts and sores in the mouth. Great article.
Gail Nobles | Jun 15, 2007 | Reply
Yea, I use salt to kill snails. It can be used for cuts and sores in the mouth. Great article.
Maggie | Jun 15, 2007 | Reply
Water will boil hotter, but never faster if salted. When adding to the concentration of a chemical in a solution (in this case, adding salt to the water), you are increasing the boiling point, meaning it is now higher. This means it will take a little longer to boil, but boil hotter.
keyboardologist | Jun 16, 2007 | Reply
Great info. Salt can also be added to vinegar to clean tarnished coins. Pennies seem to shine the best. The solution is actually a weak hydrochloric acid.
beauley, Lucien | Jun 16, 2007 | Reply
I read most of both your articles(vinegar & salt). I remembered this from previous searches, regarding flu relief. I just thought you might be able to use important points. Good articles. Keep writing.
Nasal Spray/Wash
This formula is useful for treating and preventing colds, flu’s and allergies. It can be used either as a nasal spray or wash. The spray is useful to treat symptoms or as a prophylaxis. Use as a wash to more aggressively treat symptoms or prevent illness on known exposure.
Nasal Spray/Wash Formula
Ingredient Quantity
US Measure Metric
Water 1 cup 237 ml
Salt ¼ scant to level teaspoon 1.25 ml
Xylitol 2½ level teaspoon 12.32 ml
GSE 4 drops NutriBiotic®
Grapefruit Seed Extract
Instructions: Use of warm water (preferably non-chlorinated, filtered or distilled) helps to dissolve ingredients and, when used as a wash, is comforting. Stir mixture until the ingredients dissolve completely. Pickling salt is preferred to regular table salt as the latter usually has undesirable additives (to enhance flow). The salt is soothing and therapeutic. While the xylitol is optional, it helps to wash away germs and pollutants in your sinuses, and makes it difficult for germs to colonize. If you have liquid NutriBiotic GSE, add 4 drops. Other brands may have different sized drops or potencies, so adjust as needed. NutriBiotic has fairly small drops and is 33% Citricidal. Some GSE brands are triple strength, or 100% Citricidal. The GSE is useful to attack germs and acts as a preservative. Without GSE, use formula within a few days or discard.
Enama¥ | Jun 17, 2007 | Reply
Nice article!
C A Johnson | Jun 18, 2007 | Reply
Another informative article. You did a great job!
HHH | Jun 18, 2007 | Reply
and add salt to disinfect a wound
OBVIOUSLY | Jun 18, 2007 | Reply
Salt can also be used to treat open wounds as well as salt food. You can even put it in a salt shaker!
Haider | Jun 18, 2007 | Reply
Another 2 uses:
- Cool Drinks quicker. Pop a handful of salt into a bucket of water and throw in some ice, mix it around. The salt allows the water to become colder. Pop some drinks in the mix and they’ll be nice and cool to drink in a couple of minutes!
- Throw some on the coals during a BBQ to stop it smoking. I haven’t done this but I had a greek friend tell me this, they tend to know about BBQs
Necrophagist | Jun 18, 2007 | Reply
Add a pinch of salt to cold coffee to make it taste reasonable again.
subcorpus | Jun 18, 2007 | Reply
kewls tuff here …
Molly | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Also, if you have something rusted that you’d like to shine again; salt, vinegar, and lemon juice will do the trick. That goes back to the tarnish coin idea.
And did anyone mention throwing salt over your right shoulder is good luck?! =]
Great article!
Curt | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
If you spill/break a raw egg onto the floor or wherever, (it doesn’t matter if it floats or sinks), just poor salt over it, and then wipe it up. The salt will absorb most everything and make cleanup a cinch.
BClan11 | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Using salt to cool drinks faster is actually the fastest household way to cool drinks. Salted ice water will cool a can or bottle much faster than a freezer (unless you have a flash freezer). Plus, with a little research, i think it would have become quickly and easily obvious that salted water does not boil faster, just hotter. Basic physics. The only way you could have a situation where salt makes water boil faster is if you took two pots of water near boiling and threw a pinch of salt in one. the water receiving salt will burst into a boil, but this would also happen if you threw a pinch of sand in, because the salt crystals provided nucleation sites that would allow the water to vaporize as the salt fell through the superheated liquid. If the salt becomes dissolved before the water reaches a boil, it will take longer, but the amount of salt per volume being added is so relatively small that the difference would be hard to detect.
Shane | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Gargling salt water also eases a sore throat! Just don’t swallow the salt water afterwards!!!
ric | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
good stuff
Sybs | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Nice article, but you shouldn’t encourage putting salt on car windows. It’s a catalyst that makes the metals rust faster.
Yawnsy | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Isopropyl alcohol and kosher salt together make a killer bong/pipe/glass cleaner. Unlike water, the salt will not fully disolve and will remain physically abrasive. They sell the same mixture food-coloring-enhanced at the local head shop.
Nic | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Wait…if you put salt in your garden to keep away “pests” won’t it also kill all of your plants…people used to do this way back when they raided villages so they couldn’t grow crops…unless the flower somehow helps this?
cool guy | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
You can put a couple of tablespoons of salt into a container of ice and water. It will lower the freezing temperature of the water and become colder that 32F. Good for cooling drinks quickly!
diggado | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Salt puts out small kitchen fires…especially handy if it’s a grease fire. The salt smothers the flames.
helen | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Beach Hair!
Make a solution of salt & water – lots of salt – in a spray bottle.
Spray on damp or dry hair, then style. Makes hair thicker feeling, holds spiky or tousled look. Good for refreshing these types of styles, too.
There are products on the market that sell for $15 a bottle – they are basically the same thing. Use a bit of gel or pomade to extend the effects…
Dave | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
Sprinkling salt on the napkin that restarunts use as drink coasters will keep the napkin from sticking to your glass when you pick it up.
Jeff | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
One of my friends accidentally put dish soap in the dishwasher. A few minutes later we had a huge sudsy mess all over the kitchen. A quick sprinkling of salt gets rid of all the bubbles.
We also added salt to the bubbles in the dishwasher and ran the rinse cycle to get rid of all the suds.
Carlos | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
For tropical fish suffering from “hole in the head” worms and other parasites, they benefit or cure by adding a pinch of salt to the tank
rox | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply
How good is salt on cleaning stainless steel or something
Lucy Lockett | Jun 29, 2007 | Reply
=D Thought I’d be the last one this time! Salt is so versatile and handy! Good article.
Quentin | Jul 1, 2007 | Reply
Salt taste good
lizzie2uk | Jul 14, 2007 | Reply
Some useful tips here. Thanks.
Sarah Rorral | Jul 18, 2007 | Reply
Salt can also be used to make food taste more salty!
Very usefull when your food does not taste salty enough and lacks that extra salty kick.
SALT!!! Wooooooo……..
Kurt | Aug 3, 2007 | Reply
buy a neti-pot add warm water and a little salt pour it down your nose and feel the effect.
pamela simmons | Aug 21, 2007 | Reply
will shampooing your hair with a salt shampoo
after a relaxer stop the reaction of the relaxer?
Judy Sheldon | Oct 23, 2007 | Reply
Very interesting and informative. Thanks.
Judy Sheldon | Oct 23, 2007 | Reply
Very interesting and informative. Thanks.
Brad | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Adding salt to boiling noodles will prevent the noodles sticking to the pan.
Blair, a scientist from Miami | Nov 16, 2007 | Reply
WARNING: Science Ahead !
Hi Darlene,
Forgive me, but I have to correct a long-standing misconception about your #10 above: “Boil water: Water will boil quicker if salted”.
There is a principle of chemistry known as “Boiling point elevation and Freezing point depression” which is taught in most high school and university chemistry classes. It roughly states that ‘anything’ that is dissolved in a liquid will raise the boiling temperature and lower the feezing temperature of that liquid.
So for instance, adding table salt to water will change it’s boiling temperature from the familiar 212*F to some higher number depending on how much salt is added. The more salt, the higher the number. For a teaspoon of salt dissolved in a half gallon of water, the boiling temperature would rise slightly to ~214*F.
Conversely, the same solution will not freeze at the familiar 32*F but something slightly lower like ~30*F.
The explanation for this phenomenon is that some of the heat energy being used to boil the water is absorbed by the sodium and cloride ions in the solution. Thus, it takes more heat energy bring the water to boil. This can only be accomplished at a higher temperature.
The opposite is true for freezing the solution. The sodium and cloride ions introduce more energy into the water. This will require the extraction of more energy to freeze the solution solid (i.e. ‘more cold is needed’). This is the reason we use salt to de-ice the ground in winter: On a 32*F winter morning, pure water will freeze to the 32*F ground. When we add salt to the ice, it liquifies again. It would take a slight drop in the temperature of the ground to refreeze our salt water. This is freezing point depression at work. (And winters don’t need any more depression than they already have for most people).
Now that the Myth has been Busted like on the TV show, there is a nice side effect from adding salt to water for cooking:
The water will take longer to boil as demonstrated above, but it will be boiling at a HOTTER temperature. This means that the food can be cooked in LESS time ! It’s a nice trade off since boiling some water doesn’t take any work and cooking your food will take less work !
I stumbled upon this article while doing some research, so I took a break by writing this little ‘essay’. It was fun. I hope the readers enjoy it !
Best wishes, Darlene…
Blair, a scientist from Miami | Nov 17, 2007 | Reply
Oh, I forgot to mention:
A GREAT way to get water to boil MUCH faster is to just put a lid on the pot/pan. This traps A LOT of heat above the water. It’s like having a burner on 2 sides of the water instead of just one.
Becca | Jan 13, 2008 | Reply
Saltwater solution works GREAT for thickening hair!!!! Try it!
Major P.HARIDAS | May 27, 2008 | Reply
Sit in a basin half filled with salted warm water to get
relief from painful piles. In the absence of a suitable
basin slowly pour saltd warm water over the area. Magneci-
um sulphate in place of common salt would fetch better -
results.
DAfT | Jul 14, 2008 | Reply
When I was a kid at the lake and we’d get blood suckers on us, they’d sprinkle salt on it and the sucker would fall off..
While rotating through a lab, a vial of blood broke all over the skirt of my uniform. Saline solution on the skirt broke down the blood and washing completely removed the stuff. (This was before the constant threat of bloodborne diseases. Now if it weren’t family blood, I’d burn it!)
alejandra | Sep 1, 2008 | Reply
Sorry to disappoint, but tip Nª1 is incorrect; actually it is the other way round. A fresh egg will sink, a bad one will float. Try it!!
mierda | Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
miiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrdddddddddddddddaaaaaaaaaaaa
fffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk
Sotiris | Dec 31, 2008 | Reply
didn’t know about all those uses of salt! Now that I know I will use it more! Thanks for sharing those tips!
Stephanie | Jan 25, 2009 | Reply
salt does not make water boil faster – it will actually take longer to reach the boiling point because you have increased its salinity which increases the water’s heat capacity and that raises the boiling point. what it does do is make it boil hotter once its reached the boiling point
acecampillo | Apr 12, 2009 | Reply
I like the description of your article. Salt has been essential for thousand of years already. It’s been used for trading golds for food in ancient China.
Gail | Apr 16, 2009 | Reply
Spill red wine on carpet or upholstery? Sprinkle lots of salt over the wet stain and watch it disappear!
need some help | May 3, 2009 | Reply
I have 2 boxes of table salt that have gotten a bit wet & the salt has turned a bit hard,I read someplace where you can put someithing in with the salt to take the moisture out but I don’t know what it was,I know its a piece of bread in sugar(especially brown)will keep it soft but I don’t know about salt.If someone could help me it would save me having to throw them out.Thanks
Misty | Jun 14, 2009 | Reply
Isn’t it a little rice in the salt? I’ve seen that.
Joel | Aug 25, 2009 | Reply
If you accidently throw an egg on the wall – throw 3 or 4 more, so it appears to be a style of decorating.