Elmer's Glue as Pore Strips

This post really appeals to me (haha, get it? a-peels). We all spent our childhood school days covering our fingers with kid glue only to marvel at the way it dries clear and peels off in one filmy skin-like sheet. Pore strips are supposed to work a similar way- you put them on, they adhere to your skin, and then you peel them off (hopefully) taking along with them all the dirt and crud your skin has recently collected. Now, personally, pore strips never really worked for me in the first place. I'd spend $7-10 to rip off a layer of my precious epidermis and not much else. But I'm willing to spare 15 minutes and a bit of cheap household glue, and I'm fairly hopeful this could work! Here are a few examples of original pins:

I started with freshly cleaned, warm skin, straight from the shower. I know a lot of commercial products advice opening your pores ahead of time with steam so I thought I should give Elmer's the same fighting change. My worst blackheads are on my nose and chin so I tried this on both, although to save your eyeballs and your nightmares, I'm only posting nose pictures. I even pulled out my Cannon Rebel to get all the little extra dirty details in these shots. Click to enlarge. You're welcome.

Before

Glue Applied

Once the glue was on I had a satisfactorily good feeling about this experiment. I figured that, unlike pore strips, liquid glue could really settle down into the nooks and crannies of my skin- latching on to dirt and grime and pulling it out when dry. I put a thicker layer on my chin than on my nose, so that dried first. It took about 15 minutes, during which time the glue layer felt increasingly dry and tight. It got annoyingly uncomfortable and started to make me feel anxious. At 15 minutes, I couldn't wait to get it off. I pulled off my chin layer before my nose was even dry and was wildly disappointed to find it had done absolutely nothing. NOTHING! There wasn't any noticeable difference to my skin except that it had previously been clean and smooth and now it was pink, itchy, and dry. This actually made my skin look worse than before.

Peeling off the glue.
You can see the blackheads
left behind...

After. No Difference.

I'm disappointed. This experiment was a big fail. Please don't waste your time or your skin trying this at home. I don't think there's enough moisturizer in my apartment to quickly undo the damage I just caused, and when I go out tonight I know my makeup isn't going to sit right on these patches of my skin. It's flaky, crusty, and really uncomfortable. Don't bother.

Spice Rack Organization

Recently I tested a pin that suggests using adhesive mop holders on the insides of your cabinet doors to organize spices. Like everyone else, my cabinets are a mess. Being impossibly short, I get sick of going up and down my step ladder to dig through a shelf of spices for the one I need, only to have three others fall to the floor. So here's the original pin, and here we go...

I went to amazon to find these so-called mop holders, but instead found a similar item that is marketed specifically for spices (here's the link). As a renter, I'm a little bit worried about the damage that the adhesive might do to my cabinetry. But I have goo-gone and a lot of faith so... here's to hoping.

The racks were simple peel and stick, but I learned the hard way that you should let them fully adhere to the cabinet for at least 24-48 hours before adding the weight of spices. On my first attempt, I stuck them up and added spices right away. Within the first couple of days, I would open my cabinet only to have whole racks full of bottles fell on my head. Frustrated, I was originally going to post this project as a big fat FAIL. But realizing that the racks still felt really tacky, and that I still needed a solution to my disorganized cabinets, I went for a second try. This time I stuck the racks up and let them sit empty for a couple days before filling. Now it's been over week and they're still holding strong.

More hints: make SURE you align the racks in-between your shelves so they won't interfere with each other. You would think that's pretty obvious (I certainly thought so) but I still made this mistake with the very top rack. I'll blame it on standing on my step ladder and trying to work over my head. Anyway, I switched out smaller spice bottles on the top and slid them as far up the racks as possible. That little adjustment stopped the bottles from interfering with the shelves, but the door still wouldn't close. You can see in the picture that I had two dense bags (rice and flour) near the front of my cabinet and a large bottle of olive oil on the bottom. These bigger items were getting in the way and needed to find new homes. With not too much rearranging, I finally got the door to close and sit flush. Total project time was less than an hour.

In hindsight, I should have done two racks on the bottom of one door and two racks on the bottom of the adjacent door. This would have put all of my spices within reach without having to continue dragging out my step stool. Keep that in mind if you try this at home, because I can't tell you how disappointed I am that I didn't realize it sooner. Anyway it looks nice, it makes cooking faster because I can see exactly what I need, and it emptied my shelves to make room for other objects, so I have to say it was a successful project.

Vicks on your feet?

Being sick seems like a fantastic way to start my blog, so lets start with a questionable pin I've seen spreading like wildfire in the past couple of weeks. It says that if you put Vicks on the bottom of your feet and cover with socks, it will help relieve night time coughing. It sounds like a trick, right? I figure my feet will smell like menthol but how on earth can this help my sinuses? Oh well, I'll try anything. I actually want to test this theory out for more sinus/cold related symptoms than just a cough. So here's the original post and lets get started:

 I actually couldn't wait until bedtime to try out this remedy. After a long day in my Kindergarten classroom, I decided to come home and take a snooze on the couch. I have a ton of sinus pressure, a minor cough, and an irritatingly constant runny nose. Following the very simple instructions listed above, I took a bit of Vicks and massaged it into the soles of both feet. This alone felt wonderful- everyone should have foot massages while ill. Anyway I covered up with my well-worn but still cozy Brookstone Nap socks and laid back. I couldn't believe it... the relief to my sinuses was nearly instant. My runny nose was gone and that slight tickle in my chest was soothed. I slept like a log for -get this- 3 hours! Whoops. So much for cooking dinner tonight. But I will be doing this again before bed and again every night while I'm sick. So share the knowledge (and the pin), this one works!