Daddies have Duct Tape… Mommies have DAWN!

Daddies have Duct Tape… Mommies have DAWN!

… and in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, Dawn beats Duct Tape …

The mild detergent that cuts grease off of pots and pans has become a staple in my grocery list since I had my first apartment… I held on to lessons in chemistry and art that for some reason I knew I would use... and I am so glad (and so is my husband) that I did.  Dawn is not just a dish soap anymore.  It’s a drain clearer, paint getter offer, animal helper, and much much more… Dawn has made my life a lot easier and cleaner for a lot cheaper so I’ve decided to share my Dawn knowledge…

Drain De-Clogger

No more expensive liquid plumbing agents to buy… and if you’ve read the labels on most of them, they’re not supposed to be used in toilets anyway… If your drain (toilet, sink, bath tub, etc…) ever gets clogged (not with last night’s dinner or with a power ranger toy) and you can’t seem to put your thumb on why… it may be a buildup of hair and gunk and grease in your pipes.  Take a small bottle of Dawn and empty it into the drain.  Don’t rinse or flush.   Just leave it there.  After an hour to several hours (depending on the gunk) you’ll hear what sounds almost like a toilet flushing… that’s when you can go check on it to make sure that Dawn’s magic powers have worked.  I have used this trick a handful of times and it never ceases to amaze me.  I don’t believe it works with other dish detergents… but it does work with Dawn. (Note, don’t try to unclog a drain of a dishwasher with Dawn… unless you like a kitchen full of suds).

Turpentine Substitute

Whoops! I forgot to wash off my paint brush… it’s still RED with paint and is now hard as a rock!! And I need it… like, now… to paint with white paint… and I can’t go out and get another brush because my son is FINALLY napping.  Mix a little dawn and a little bit of vegetable oil and you’ve got yourself a paint remover… You also may have to use a bit of elbow grease depending on how tough this stain is.  Personally I like to soak the brush in hot Dawn water before scrubbing… Voila!!  (Rinse well, of course… and let dry before using to paint again).

Stain Remover

Well I was painting in my husband’s favorite St. Louis Cardinal’s tee shirt and dropped that white paint brush on his red shirt.  As a Cubs fan, I was tempted to just leave it… but nobody likes a crying husband.  So I filled the kitchen sink with cold Dawn water and dumped in as much ice as I had (to make it ice water).  I let it soak overnight and then scrubbed the stain with a brush… Rinsed it well, put it in the washer… and BOOM! He never knew.  I’ve used this trick with chocolate, blood, and pizza sauce too.  Blood was a bit tougher to get out and kept a slight yellow stain on a white shirt (more like off white) but I was desperate with no stain remover at my house… But I’d love to know somebody else’s tricks for blood stains!!

Flea Catcher/Killer

The people who owned the house before we did had less than perfect hygiene (to be nice about it).  This was to the extent that we literally ripped out all of the flooring, ripped off all of the wall paper, and painted every square foot of the house that wasn’t going to have new floor on it.  Somebody that was helping us renovate this house ended up with what we assumed were flea bites all over his ankles and knees and so we decided that before we continue we would have a pest service come and bomb the house for fleas and other pests…

Thankfully, we had an honest pest control man who explained that fleas were most likely not the culprit (As they wouldn’t still be living there without some type of hair or carpet to live on).  And flea removal was way more expensive than most other pest removals… So he told us to fill a disposable bowl with water and Dawn, put it on the ground, and leave it over night with a light shining directly above it.  At night, the fleas would be attracted to the light and would eventually fall into the Dawn water.  We did this for 3 nights in a row and did not catch a thing.  I’ve seen many other people use this trick since (online forums) and they claim they caught a few fleas… please note, this is not to exterminate your fleas but to help determine if you need to pay the money to have them exterminated.

Oil Remover

Remember the cute lil helpless penguins and other sea dwellers that were caught in the oil spills?  They use Dawn to clean those lil guys off.  As mentioned before, the solvent is mild but tough on grease.  It is also biodegradable so entering the water system or the ground is not going to harm your plants or other cute creatures… For this reason, it is often recommended to use Dawn over other products to take out grease stains in your garage or driveway.  Later on, when you hose off the driveway, you don’t have to make a barricade around your grass and flowers… the suds will not harm them.  You can also use Dawn to soak your greasy tools in after working on your car or lawn mower (or anything else you may have been working on that caused a minor oil spill).  It will not tarnish your tools (you use Dawn on your silver, you don’t have to worry about other metals) and will leave them sparkling clean!!

Duct Tape

Daddy go a little overboard on the Duct Tape that he used to “fix” the basketball hoop? Pour Dawn directly on the Gray Go-To and work it under the tape until it loosens up. 

That settles it!! Dawn trumps Duct Tape!!