Most of us always have Olive Oil on hand and we gathered up 15 Alternative uses for Olive Oil other than cooking to share with you today!
Olive oil is available in various grades. Extra-virgin is the premium grade of olive oil, which is best for cooking and dipping. For any other use, lesser grades of olive oil work just as well and won’t break the bank.
What else can olive oil do?
15 Alternative Uses for Olive Oil…
1. Rub the olive oil into a dry scalp, leave it on for five minutes, shampoo out, then shampoo again. If you do this once a week, your scalp will be happy. Will your hair be oily? Yes. This treatment is not your best strategy for date night.
2. Rub olive oil on your fingernails (toenails like this too) between removal and reapplication of polish. Remove the oil with gentle soap after five or so minutes.
3. Rub olive oil into dry heels and smooth over the balance of the foot. Put a pair of thick socks on and go to bed. In the morning, you’ll have the feet of a twenty-year-old (if you believe that kind of thing to be moral; after all, now there is a twenty-year-old out there with your scaly feet). This trick also works quite well with hands. You can use either cotton, vinyl, latex or nitrile gloves. The latter three will stop the ooze of oil to your bed linen, but are sweatier.
4. Olive oil will both remove mascara and give your eyes a very nice moisturizing treatment.
5. Put some drops of olive oil in ears for a few consecutive nights. It will help reduce earwax buildup and also helps with earaches.
6. It makes the pads of a dog’s or cat’s paws softer and less subject to tearing on rough ground. Dip a dog’s paws directly into a pan of olive oil. Use a paintbrush when applying to a cat’s paws.
7. The oil also works on hooves: I can vouch for horse, cow, sheep and pig hooves.
8. An animal with a dry or irritated nose can benefit from a dab of olive oil there, too.
9. Olive oil is a smothering agent for microscopic life. Think ear mites, mosquito larvae, lice and nits. Of course, if you have head lice, you have to leave a good layer of olive oil all over your head for three days (hopefully over a holiday weekend). As for getting rid of athlete’s foot and under-nail fungus, it requires immersion for three weeks. It is not going to be your first choice for treatment unless you work at home and have significant others who will put up with your shuffling two baking pans with you everywhere you go for a fortnight.
10. The person who came up with the idea of a textured surface for appliances ought to be slapped, but here again, olive oil is your best friend. It will remove the hardened epoxy of grease-and-grime that any household object accumulates. Wipe the oil on, wait 20 minutes, wipe it off, then wipe the surface with a soapy cloth.
11. Olive oil will not rescue badly-cracked leather, but dry leather will absorb it and swell, minimizing the cracks.
12. Olive oil is not usually viscous enough to use as lubricant for moving metal parts, but if need be, give it a try. Do your best to keep the operating temperature down and re-lube the area often.
13. The oil can be burned in lamps designed for “lamp oil,” that smelly sooty petrochemical stuff which purports to be scented. Olive oil is not much less sooty, but it makes the area smell like a good Italian restaurant, and not kerosene. If you wish, you can add a real essential oil to the oil, but it won’t entirely change the Italian-restaurant smell. Think rosemary, not lavender.
14. If you make your own soap, olive oil can add skin-soothing fat to the soap recipe.
15. When you get a sunburn, apply olive oil directly to your skin. This will enhance the healing process.
The French woman who holds the record for the longest lifespan credits olive oil. She rubs it into her skin and pours it all over her food.
Alternative uses, indeed.
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