The Most Surprising (and Surprisingly Awesome) Uses of Baking Soda
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Ever get disappointed when people offer “at home” remedies that require you to have a bunch of exotic ingredients? Unless you happen to have fridges and pantries full of rare or expensive ingredients, you have to make a special shopping trip to try the remedy out. Let’s face it: if you have to get in the card, it’s not exactly an “at home” remedy anymore!
That’s why we were so excited to discover the many surprising uses of baking soda. Everyone has some baking soda sitting around the house, and it usually lasts forever because we only use it for a handful of things. After you learn what it can do, though, you might start using it for a variety of health and beauty needs.
Don’t believe it? Keep reading to discover the most surprising uses of baking soda!
Get rid of dark spots
There are few things more frustrating than dark spots on your body. They often look ugly, and it doesn’t help that they are nicknamed “old age spots.” No matter how much moisturizer you use on a regular basis, these spots make sure that we can’t hide our age, and the last thing we want to do is splurge on a bunch of over-the-counter treatments that don’t actually work.
But you guessed it: baking soda works wonders for getting rid of old age spots. All you have to do is make it into a paste and apply it to the spots. Because of the bleaching properties, you’ll see those spots lightening up in no time!
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An affordable acne treatment
Acne is a bit like those dark spots…it makes us fret over how we look, and each pimple seems more painful than the one before. To make matters worse, acne can affect people at any age. That means many of us spend a lifetime trying to find an affordable way to make the pimples go away.
Fortunately, baking soda paste can help you deal with mild cases of acne (though if you have a more extreme case, you should really go to the dermatologist). Just put the paste on your pimples for at least 15 minutes. Do this two or three times in a period of 24 hours. The paste helps dry the pimples out and makes them go away!
Make blackheads a thing of the past
Even if you don’t get traditional pimples all that often, you might get blackheads. If anything, those are even more painful than acne and often harder to get rid of. If you have some baking soda, though, getting rid of blackheads is easier than ever.
All you have to do is lightly scrub the affected area with baking soda. As long as you don’t scrub too hard (this can cause damage to your skin), the grainy nature of the baking soda helps remove unwanted blackheads. And let’s face it: all blackheads are unwanted.
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Easy facial exfoliation
Do you exfoliate your face? Doing so is one of the best ways to keep it looking young and healthy. But it’s an open secret that many exfoliants are both expensive and ineffective. And the last thing we want to do is waste money while our skin continues to look older and older.
You know where we’re going with this: the grainy texture of baking soda can help you exfoliate your face in a natural and highly effective way. It’s even more effective than you might think because the alkaline in it can help to unclog your pores. Just give it a try and see how well this process removes the dead skin cells from your face!
Exfoliate the rest of your body on any budget
Many people who exfoliate only do so on their faces. That’s a bit of a rookie mistake…in the best-case scenario, you end up with a young-looking face on an old-looking body. The solution is to exfoliate the rest of your body, and baking soda is just as good for your elbows, knees, and lips as it is for your face.
In addition to removing dead skin cells, this process can also lighten dark areas of your skin because of the aforementioned bleaching properties. The final result is glowing skin, courtesy of some simple ingredients that you already have inside the house.
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Should anyone avoid these baking soda treatments?
As you can see, baking soda has plenty of great uses. But that doesn’t mean that everyone should try these tips, especially not without consulting a doctor. That’s especially true if you have dry skin or some kind of major skincare problem.
Also, be careful about how often you do this. You shouldn’t be trying these techniques more than once a week or so. Otherwise, you run the risk of causing damage to your skin. And when it comes to the paste, never leave it on overnight or you might wake up with more skin problems than you went to bed with.