Many uses for this inexpensive liquid will amaze you

I am revealing my age and my mother’s Depression-era upbringing with this, but when I was a child, Mom used a bar of soap to wash my hair. It wasn’t until the mid-1960s that my folks realized they could buy shampoo at the grocery store.

And, yeah, when my mom was washing my long, wavy hair, she wasn’t using conditioner, either.

Nope. She poured vinegar through my wet tresses.

“Your mom sounds bad-ass,” said Erica Strauss, the Edmonds mother known for her new book “The Hands-On Home” and her website nwedible.com.

“The reason the vinegar worked on your hair is because its acidity closed the outside layer of each hair, smoothing it so your mom could get a comb through it,” she said. “For skin and hair, vinegar is a great way to balance the pH and remove residual alkaline from soap.”

Like many folks who write about natural living, Strauss believes in the miraculousness of white distilled vinegar. And because she is a chef, Strauss recommends apple cider vinegar for all sorts of cooking techniques and health remedies.

“People have been using vinegar for thousands of years,” she said. “You know what you’re dealing with.”

For people concerned about chemical cleaning products, white distilled vinegar is the best solution to kitchen and bathroom care, Strauss said.

“Coupled with a natural soap, it’s an all-around great cleaning product,” she said. “It’s inexpensive, it’s versatile and in most cases, it’s completely safe.”

In bathrooms, vinegar takes care of mineral deposits. In the kitchen, you can run it through your coffee pot to strip away stains; in the laundry room you can put it through the washing machine to get rid of that smelly soap buildup.

In fact, a little bit of vinegar in a laundry rinse helps wash away soap and helps eliminate static cling, she said.

Vinegar can help fight mildew and odors, shine silverware and get rid of stains on your wine glasses.

About the only places Strauss wouldn’t use vinegar is on granite, marble or other stone.

“Just because it’s amazing, doesn’t mean you can use it willy nilly. Remember that vinegar is acidic.”

Strauss learned the hard way.

One spring, her new REI rain jacket had picked up some nasty stains.

“I thought I would try just a little vinegar to clean it and I completely destroyed the waterproofing. I shredded it,” Strauss said. “Otherwise, vinegar is the best.”

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.

Tips for using vinegar

White distilled

Kill pesky weeds in your lawn with a mixture of vinegar, some Epsom salt and a bit of blue Dawn detergent. Spray the mix on weeds after dew evaporates.

Plants like rhododendrons, hydrangeas and azaleas love acid. Give them a boost by watering occasionally with a solution of one cup vinegar to a gallon of water.

Remove road grime from the windshield wipers so they have a better window grip by wiping them with a cloth soaked in vinegar.

White distilled

Moisten unwanted stickers with vinegar. Let sit. Remove.

Clean windows with half water, half vinegar (although Strauss prefers vodka) in your spray bottle.

Clean silver, pewter, copper or brass with a paste made of a teaspoon of salt dissolved in a cup of vinegar and mixed with 1/4 cup of flour. Apply, let stand, rinse, polish.

Spray shower walls and curtains to prevent mildew.

To remove soap buildup and give chrome sink and bathtub fixtures a shine, make a paste with 2 tablespoons salt and 1 teaspoon vinegar and scrub with a toothbrush.

Scrub tile walls with a solution of half water and half vinegar. Make a tile cleaner by mixing 1 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup baking soda and 1 cup ammonia in a gallon of warm water.

Keep ants away by spraying vinegar wherever they are likely to appear.

To remove odors from sink or garbage disposal, pour a cup of vinegar down and let it sit for an hour.

Chopping onions or garlic? Got berry stains on your hands? Remove odor and color with a vinegar wipe.

For fresher cloth diapers, add a cup of distilled vinegar to the rinse cycle.

To keep cats off windowsills, spray the surface with vinegar.

For smelly or stained plastic food containers and lunch boxes, dampen a cloth with vinegar and wipe them out.

Apple cider vinegar

For edible remedies and body care, apple cider vinegar is the right choice and Bragg’s brand is Strauss’s recommendation. Apple cider vinegar helps humans absorb more nutrients from food whether you slug it or add it to raw salad dressing, and it can reduce blood sugar spikes after you eat.

For a stuffy nose and a sore throat or to lose weight and beat constipation, try mixing and then drinking a cup of water, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon honey, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper and the juice of one lemon. Some people recommend drinking this with food.

Use vinegar to clean fruit and vegetables. Spray and rinse or give them a soak in a solution of 1 1/2 quarts water with a tablespoon of vinegar.

Eight ounces of apple cider vinegar added to a bathtub filled with warm water will restore your skin’s pH levels. This also helps with sunburn, razor bumps, dandruff treatment and bug bites.