Milking It: 4 New Uses For Your Favorite Beverage

Milk is good for you because of its nutritional value, but what you might not realize is how many alternative ways that milk can be used. In fact, there are many benefits from milk that can help many aspects of your life, from home remedies to cleaning to skin care.

In today’s busy world, multitasking is essential. It turns out that the milk sitting in your fridge is the best multi-tasker there is! As if you needed any more reasons to love milk, check out these life hacks that can benefit your home and can really help you out in a pinch.

1. Milk Can Make Your Home Shine

Many people have their own homemade versions of cleaning products, from soaps to sprays. But the truth is all you need is a glass of milk. If you’ve run out of your cleaner, or have unexpected company when your house is a mess, reach in the fridge. Glass milk bottles look so much nicer on a polished table. The good news is that you can use what’s in those bottles to polish furniture! Just mix equal parts milk and lemon juice to make surfaces shine. The milk and lemon juice mixture is also good for removing ink stains from clothing. Dip a sponge or cloth in it and scrub the garment. You can also soak the garment in the mixture overnight and then wash it.

You can use milk to clean leather, too. Just dip a soft cloth in a bowl of milk and apply it to the surface you’re cleaning. If you don’t drink all of your milk in time, and it goes bad, wait before you throw it away. You can actually clean silverware with sour milk. Soak the silverware in the sour milk for 30 minutes and then wash it with warm water.

That clean silverware is going to need some beautiful dishes to compliment. You can get rid of the cracks in your china dishes with milk. Put your cracked china in a pot of milk and heat it until it’s warm. Then let it soak. It’s best to soak it overnight, but if you can’t do that, just let it soak as long as possible.

2. Open Your Taste buds With a Little Help From Milk

There are a lot of delicious milk-based recipes out there, but did you know that you can use milk to enhance the taste of corn and fish? The next time you cook with either of these foods, make sure you try these tricks. Add milk to the water when you’re boiling corn on the cob. This makes it taste sweeter and juicier. Your summer barbeques just got better.

Making fish for dinner? If you’re cooking frozen fish, thaw it in a dish of milk. This will give it a fresh-caught taste. You’ll begin to doubt whether it really came from the freezer!

3. Itch? Burn? Milk is Your Fix

If you spend a lot of time outdoors, mother nature can provide some unfortunate drawbacks. The good news is that you don’t need to limit your time outside. Just keep some milk on hand and you’ll be prepared. For bug bites, you can make a paste using milk, water, and salt and apply this to those pesky spots. Got a nasty sunburn? Milk can help with that, too. Just dip a cotton ball in some milk and dab it on the burned skin. This also works if you get caught in an unexpected patch of poison ivy.

Calluses are annoying but sometimes unavoidable when you work with your hands or enjoy a physical hobby, sport, or activity. While there’s no way to get rid of a callus quickly, milk can help to soften these irritations to help heal your hands. Apply cold milk to these spots 3 times a day. Fingertip stains are another common result from a physical job or hobby. Dip half a lemon in milk and rub it on these stains for a natural remedy to stain removal.

4. Milk Can Help Your Beauty Regime

Milk is nutritious and helps you feel great on the inside, but it can also make you feel just as great on the outside. Use milk in your beauty routine and see for yourself the helpful things it can do for your body. When you go to bed at night and realize that you’re out of makeup remover, you don’t have to make a late-night run to the drug store. Instead, just use a mixture of powdered milk and water. This same paste can also be used to make a face mask. Apply it to your face for half an hour, then rinse it off with warm water. You can also use the mixture as shaving cream!

Milk is great for keeping your skin healthy and glowing, too. Add 1 cup of powdered milk to your bath and you’ll come out with beautiful, smooth skin. Cleopatra reportedly used milk baths for her own skin care. For smooth, soft hands, mix milk with oatmeal to make a hand cream. Clean your hands using this mixture and then rinse it off.

You can even condition your hair with milk in two different ways. When you’re in the shower, rinse your hair with milk and then wash it out. You can also use that powdered milk and water paste for this if you don’t want to use fresh milk.

Did you know that milk can also be used as massage oil? This is just another of the many ways that you can use this delicious beverage down to the very last drop!