We all hate those lingering smells that embed themselves into your fingertips after a few hours in the kitchen. Whether it be garlic, fishy odors, or onions, somehow certain food odors seem to stay with you long after the meal has been finished. Perhaps your first solution may be to avoid using the ingredients all together. However, doing so would deprive you of a wide range of flavors and culinary potential. So we know that is not going to work.
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Often your next thought is to wash our hands in scalding hot water with a grease-cutting soap. Sadly, that too often won't do the trick. So how can the problem of persistent cooking smells be solved?! Easily. With seven everyday kitchen ingredients, you can instantly banish many of the kitchen's most offending odors with DIY solutions.
Bonus: The first one you're guaranteed to always have on hand.
1. Stainless Steel
This might be the simplest and most overlooked solution to getting those unwelcome odors off your hands. Simply use a spoon, knife, or sink and rub your fingers back and forth across the stainless steel metal. It's that easy to remove the bad smells that come from certain ingredients.
However, we do recommend that you use a stainless steel odor absorbing bar.
2. Coffee Grounds
Sure you could compost your coffee grounds. But, you could also keep a backup stash just in case you need to whip up an odor-removal scrub.
Not only will your hands smell like a mug of fresh morning joe, but coffee also exfoliates your skin, which helps get rid of funky food smells faster while leaving your hands silky smooth.
All you have to do is dunk your fingers in some excess grounds and rub them around for a minute or two before rinsing them off in warm water, and voila! Cooking odors gone.
3. Lemon
Lemons are good for almost everything in the kitchen. Using them to get rid of stinky kitchen smells on your fingers is no exception. Just squeeze some juice over your skin and rub it in.
Lemon peels and other citrus peels are also useful for eliminating kitchen odors or musty smells. Put lemon rinds in the garbage disposal or trash can to break up food residue, or place them throughout the house as natural air fresheners. These citrus air purifiers work better than potpourri!
Once you wash it off, you'll be lemony fresh.
4. Vinegar + Baking Soda
So if you didn't know, leaving out a cup of vinegar on your kitchen countertop or stovetop overnight does wonders for making your house smell fresh. It's also great for clean up, and it gets odors off your hands exceptionally well.
Simply make a paste of white vinegar and baking soda and slather the foam all over your hands. Once it's dry, rinse it off, and voila!
5. Tomato Juice
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If tomato juice can get rid of skunk odors, it can certainly get rid of some lingering garlic.
Just pour out a can of V8 and soak your hands for a minute or two. When you rinse them off, there'll be no food odors in sight.
6. Salt
Wash your hands and then scrub them with salt.
A vigorous scrubbing will remove all the excess dead skin cells on your hands and the food odors will disappear with them.
7. Antiseptic Mouthwash
Mouthwash does double duty on smelly hands. It neutralizes odor-causing compounds and kills and odor-causing bacteria that's left over.
Plus it will leave a minty fresh scent on your hands that will mask anything that is stubborn enough to be left over.
This post was originally published on June 17, 2017.
