Aluminum Foil Hacks That Changed Our Lives Forever
By Hailey B.
Admit it: You’ve got aluminum foil in your kitchen, right now. Plastic wrap and Tupperware are useful. But in your heart of hearts, we know you love that thin, beautiful metal. It’s stored as a roll in the cabinet, and we use it to store leftovers or line trays. But aluminum foil is so much more than that. As it turns out, there are many alternative uses you might have never even considered. We certainly didn’t! Here are some clever and crafty hacks that prove that this seemingly simple kitchen staple has a lot of benefits. From cleaning to cooking and baking hacks, there’s a lot to learn. We are looking forward to trying them all, one by one. Let’s begin, foil lovers.
Surprisingly, You Can Enhance Your Router
Those who remember fiddling around with TV antennas may not find this one too surprising. When you were a kid, aluminum foil was a great way to boost the antenna signal of your TV, and it’s the same thing for today’s router as well.
Take some aluminum foil and shape tiny curved squares if you want to boost your wifi signal. You can place these squares behind your router’s antennas to help it pick up a signal, sort of like giving your router a pair of ears.
Fix Battery Size With Foil
The solution, at least half the time, is aluminum foil. If you’re like us, you probably have trouble finding the right size battery for whatever you need. With foil, you can change AAA batteries into AA batteries, et cetera, because it conducts electricity.
Just place a little aluminum foil between the battery and its positive terminal and it will work. You should avoid touching another terminal by using too much foil. This shouldn’t be used for a long time. Get new batteries, soon.
Keep Your Jewelry Clean and Polished
Using aluminum foil to clean jewelry and silverware is a great idea. It’s a relatively easy tool to use. The first step is to cover a dish with aluminum foil and add a heaping tablespoon of salt and baking soda. Let the items you want to clean soak in the mixture for around 10 minutes before rinsing them off.
They should look like new once they are done. After that, you can use a cloth for further drying and polishing. What’s the science? By pulling out the sulfur atoms from aluminum foil, tarnish is removed. Afterward, the atoms stick to the aluminum and make the jewelry shine and clean.
Foil Works as Dryer Sheets
Instead of buying store-bought dryer sheets, you might want to consider using aluminum foil balls. To dry clothes, crumble some foil into small balls and place a couple in the dryer. When clothes are rolled around in a dryer, static tends to accumulate on the foil.
There’s one little downside: Foil won’t give your clothes a spring scent like dryer sheets. Even so, it’s a cheap and proven technique to get rid of static and leave your clothes softer after drying. It’s surely worth a try!
Get Rid of Rust Forever
In this life hack, you can clean and get rid of rust using vinegar and aluminum foil. All you need to do is rub some vinegar on the rust or balled-up aluminum foil to get rid of it. It is possible to rub away the rust easily with the piece of foil because of two different chemical reactions.
In this way, the acidity of the vinegar reacts with the iron oxide or rust, and the aluminum foil works by stealing oxygen molecules away from the iron oxide. The iron oxide dissolves as it loses atoms to the aluminum foil.
Improve Your Photos Like a Pro
Among its many different qualities, aluminum foil is also great for reflecting light. As a result, you can use it to better light your photos. Consider it a cheaper version of a professional reflector. When photographing your subject, you can use a large piece of foil to disperse light and reflect it effectively.
Small subjects might only require one sheet, while larger ones might require you to tape multiple sheets together. If you ever need better lighting, this is a cheap and quick fix. Aluminum foil can almost always be found wherever you shoot.
Keep Away Pesky Birds
Aluminum foil can be used to prevent insects from attacking, but it can also be used to scare birds away from fruit trees. You can achieve this by hanging a few strips from your trees and letting them do the rest. This will act like a shiny scarecrow for birds and keep them from eating your fruit.
Two reasons are why birds are not fond of foil. They try to keep as far away from the foil as possible because they don’t like how it feels, and the shiny surface affects their vision. It’s a sneaky trick!
Sharpen Scissors With Ease
If you have a dull pair of scissors lying around your home, you might want to give foil a try. The aluminum foil can be used to sharpen those blades, even if you don’t have a whetstone or sharpening tool on hand. To create layers, fold aluminum foil multiple times.
Once the foil has been cut through, use dull scissors to cut through it. Once you’ve cut a few times with the scissors, they should be much sharper. Similar to a sharpening stone, aluminum foil acts as an abrasive. Even though this won’t restore completely worn out scissors, it will sharpen and shine dull ones.
Stop Bugs From Ruining Plants
A surprising use for aluminum foil is its ability to repel insects. Aphids, for example, will not come near your garden if you do this. A study conducted by researchers found that plants wrapped in aluminum foil were 25% less likely to be attacked by pests.
It is believed that the foil disrupts insects’ ability to identify plants that they prefer. Foil can also be used as mulch. It is best to cover around 50% of the garden’s surface area with foil, but as long as you cover a wide area, you should be able to protect your plants.
Make Your Furniture New Again
It is true that this look isn’t compatible with everyone’s décor, but it is still a really cool way to get your furniture a customized look without painting it. In general, you just need to cover your entire piece of furniture with aluminum foil, press it down with a small stick, and then cover it with some kind of finish.
There are some tutorials floating around on the internet about how to do this. This will form a metallic finish that may look like silver leaf on the entire piece. You can also add texture to the finish by painting over it after you are done.
Relieve Burns, At Least a Bit
Aluminum foil can be used as a burn healer. It works as a conductor, which means the heat in your body is dispersed into the air and into the foil, which is why it helps heal small burns. Cover a small burn with foil and let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes.
Once it’s removed, you shouldn’t experience any pain. This is a good, cheap remedy for minor burns at home, but you should probably go to the doctor if the burns are more serious. Always seek the opinion of your doctor, folks.
The Easy Way To Clean Grills
You probably don’t think of aluminum foil when you think of cleaning your grill, but you probably should. Foil can easily be used to scrub the grill. It also helps remove any rust from it. You just need to turn on your grill and turn the heat to high for a few minutes.
This is so any grease or large chunks of debris can loosen up and burn off. Scrub with a piece of foil once you have loosen the grease. When cleaning, use gloves, but the foil should easily remove leftover debris. It is much more effective than a brush or sponge.
Easy Peasy Paint Cleanup
It can be used for just about anything, but covering a paint tray with aluminum foil is one of the most useful uses. After you’re done, you can easily remove any leftover paint and the tray will be clean. Paint no longer needs to be scuffed away or even worse, left in trays to dry.
As an alternative to using drop cloths, you can simply spread aluminum foil on the floor to soak up paint splatters. Never again will they find their way to your hardwood, tiles, or carpet. You will have a lovely home in no time. That’s it!
DIY Stylus for Tablets and Phones
If you lose your stylus, it can be quite expensive. It’s also possible that they don’t always work the way they are supposed to and sometimes they just don’t feel comfortable to hold. But, did you know that you can actually make your own stylus with a pencil and aluminum foil?
All you need is some foil and a pencil. Scientifically, it works like this: Aluminum foil is a conductor. By wrapping your pencil in aluminum foil, the current can be transferred from your body into the tip. Pretty cool, no?
Heat Your Home Efficiently
Heat can be extremely expensive during the winter if your home uses a radiator. In order to reduce your heating bill during the winter, you can use aluminum to make your radiator more efficient and save money on your heating bill.
To do so, simply place some foil behind and on the sides of your radiator to reflect heat away from your walls. In addition to reducing heat loss, you will also save money on heating bills since the heat is focused back towards the center of your room and towards your radiator.
The Perfect Pie Crust
If you’re a pie lover, you probably know how hard it is to get it right. This is especially true if you have a pie crust that tends to burn. You can protect those pie crusts with aluminum foil. If you wrap the edges of the pie pan with aluminum foil, the heat will disperse while the pie cooks.
In no time, you will have perfect pie crusts. But this is just the beginning. Foil can also be used to cook other foods that burn easily. Just leave a few areas open so the heat can dissipate. It’s genius!
Amazing Foil Ball Decor
The aluminum foil balls you can make can look like heavy, solid pieces of aluminum, and are a great display piece just about anywhere, as you might’ve seen on a science show before. You can do it by crumbling up a piece of foil that is a bit bigger than the ball you want.
After that, hammer it down for 20 to 30 minutes. You can make them as big or small as you like by polishing them with aluminum polish for an hour. We assume you never thought about this, but it’s time to give it a try.
Move Furniture Easily
The weight of heavy furniture can be hard on your back, and it can also be almost impossible without someone to help you. Instead, use aluminum foil to move heavy objects. You can easily slide the furniture across the floor by placing a piece of foil under each foot and decreasing friction.
It’s like using wheels on the furniture, because the foil reduces friction. You’ll probably have different results depending on the type of flooring you have in your home, but it should work with most surfaces to some extent. Try it, friends.
Give Your Plants More Light
Using aluminum foil to keep insects from your garden is just one more way to keep them at bay, but you can also use it to increase the amount of light that your plants receive from the sun. For small seedlings, you can use a shoebox lined with foil.
There’s one more way. You can just cover the ground around your plant with aluminum foil and hold it down with rocks. Any light that strikes the foil will reflect back onto your plants. This will keep them happy and sunbathed.
Create a Homemade Funnel
Probably one of the most useful hacks on this list, you can use aluminum foil to fashion a homemade funnel the next time you need to make a delicate pour. just take a thick piece, or fold a thinner piece over itself, and mold it into a funnel.
You now have a water-tight material to use if you need to pour a drink or even something like oil. It’s a good idea to get someone to hold the funnel while you pour because aluminum foil can be quite light, even though it’s heavy. Once you’ve got that, you’re ready to pour.
Keep Bananas Extra Fresh
Using aluminum foil to keep leftovers fresh is something we’ve all done at one time or another. But did you know that you can also use aluminum foil to prevent bananas from ripening at all? Cover the banana stems tightly with aluminum foil.
By enclosing bananas in aluminum foil, you prevent them from ripening and browning, just as you would with plastic wrap. They will stay fresh for longer and will brown just as quickly as if they hadn’t. It’s like a double peel, really.
Ensure Your Oven Is Clean
There might be a better way to do it, but we’ve all been there late at night. You might not feel like washing dishes or maybe you don’t even own a baking sheet sometimes. If that’s the case, you can use aluminum foil the next time you cook directly on the rack in your oven so that it stays clean.
Just place a sheet under your cookout and it will catch anything that falls. It’s also pretty easy and fast to cook without a baking sheet by just removing the foil sheet after you’re done. You’ll never go back to the old way, we say.
Quickie Jean Repair
If your jeans have a hole, you can actually iron on another patch of denim to fix it. If you are going to iron on the patch, you might want to slide a piece of aluminum foil between them so that the patch doesn’t stick to the inside of the jeans.
You can remove the foil after you have finished ironing. If you don’t want your jeans to be full of holes. this is the trick. The next time you tear your favorite jeans, you’ll know how to patch it up.
Cook Eggs in a New Way
The aluminum foil can be used to cook your eggs just like you would a small pan when you don’t feel like pulling out a pan or skillet. You can also use it when out camping without having to carry heavy pots. You can find a lot of recipes for this on the web, but this is unique.
The only thing you need to do is place an egg in a foil container over heat and crack it open. You can also wrap aluminum foil around your eggs so you won’t have to flip them. Aluminum foil is such a good conductor that it allows you to cook evenly.
Seal Certain Food Bags
Is there ever a time when you wish you could easily seal up a bag after opening it? Fortunately, you can, and it’s pretty simple, too. For bags that don’t already have one side covered in foil, you will want to place a strip over one side. Place the bag down on a piece of cloth.
Once the foil covers the plastic, iron the top of the bag. With the heat from the iron, the plastic underneath the foil will melt together, creating a seal that is almost as good as new. Tricks like these are real gamechangers.
Getting That Flashlight Repaired
You can use aluminum foil to fix a flashlight that may be disconnected. Sometimes the springs inside flashlights get worn out and cannot fit on the battery terminals anymore. In such a case, you can use a bit of aluminum foil to fill the gap and restore the current in the flashlight.
This little trick could probably be used in just about any situation that requires reestablishing a connection, but a flashlight is more likely to be useful one of those items that you don’t realize is not working until you really need it.
Make Custom Cookie Cutters
We all love cookies, but we do not always have cookie cutters on hand. When we do, they are usually simple circles. If you want to make your own cookie cutters out of aluminum foil, you can add a little flavor to them.
The sheets can be folded over themselves a couple of times to create rigidity. Then you can shape them however you like. For best results, try heavy-duty aluminum foil, which can be found pretty much anywhere regular aluminum foil is found.
Clean an Iron Easily
You probably know how difficult it is to get off your iron if you have ever run over something sticky or just plain dirty. The problem is that it might ruin anything else you iron in the future. Fortunately, there is a pretty easy solution.
Just run your iron over aluminum foil a few times, and all the debris should come off. This hack is super easy to use, and we’ve definitely wished we had known about it earlier. It beats trying to scrub debris away with a blade or anything else.
Use Your Steel Wool Longer
Steel wool is awesome, but it has a tendency to rust quickly after its first use. To prevent rust, you can wrap it in aluminum foil and place it in the freezer for a few minutes. When you pull it out again, it will be as good as new.
You can simply wipe away any rust that forms by using the foil. The freezer works to freeze any moisture that remains, while the foil works to deoxidize any rust that forms. Now, you won’t run out of this material as quickly.
Keep Dinner Warm for Longer
If you invite guests to dinner the next time, you can keep bread and other items warm for longer by placing aluminum foil underneath them. The foil will trap more heat and transfer it to the food better than a regular paper napkin.
The best part is that you can conceal the foil underneath a fancy napkin to conceal it and still use it. It’s also possible to completely wrap something in foil to trap heat if you just want it to stay warm for as long as possible.