Survival uses for dish soap
One of the most fun aspects of preparing for a survival situation is learning how to use everyday household items for a myriad of different survival applications that could potentially save your life.
As a result, you’ll develop a newfound appreciation for items that you had previously only taken for granted. One such item is dish soap, and while we already have a need for it already in getting our dishes clean, it can serve a whole host of other survival purposes as well.
We’ll dive into ten of those uses here:
Stain Remover
Taking care of our clothing needs to be an essential in any disaster scenario because the supply of clothes (along with other necessities such as food and water) is going to become cut off. No longer will you be able to make a quick run to the clothes store. Rather, you’ll just have to do with the clothes you already have, and that means taking as good of care of those clothes as you possibly can.
If any of your clothes get a stain on them, it’s nothing that a little dish soap and some water can’t handle. This will especially be useful if you no longer have access to your washing machine.
Shampoo Alternative
Even more important than taking care of your clothes is taking care of yourself. Personal hygiene will be a top priority in a survival situation, and if you run out of shampoo, you can easily use dish soap as an alternative. Dish soap is great as shampoo because it will remove oils and grease without damaging your hair.
Laundry Detergent Alternative
You can also utilize your dishwashing soap as a laundry detergent alternative as well. As a golden rule, use one teaspoon of dish soap for every load of clothes.
Protect Your Food
When you’re eating outdoors especially, you have to keep your food protected from pests such as bugs. Not only are bugs extremely annoying, but they can actually harm your food and make it unsafe to consume.
Therefore, you must have a way to keep bugs away from your food, and this is yet another use where dish soap can come in handy. Pour two teaspoons of dish soap into a water spray bottle, and then spray the air around you or your table and the bugs will be kept at bay.
Bug Spray
You don’t just have to use your dish soap to keep bugs away from food. You can use it as a general purpose bug spray, perfect. While it’s not quite as effective as normal bug spray, it’s still one of the best DIY options you can create. Spray your plants, your shelter, your furniture, and even your skin to keep away the bugs.
Make Your Lawn Greener
Yes, you can actually make your lawn look more green by spraying it with dish soap mixed with water and a few other ingredients: you’ll need water, bug spray, corn syrup, mouthwash, and a soda can.
The dishwashing soap will stick to each blade of your grass and spread the mixture of ingredients across the lawn, and you should start to see results in a number of days. Water your lawn with these method at least once every three weeks. Not only will a green lawn help boost your morale during a disaster scenario, but this is something you can do in your everyday life too.
Eliminate Weeds
Another lawn use for dish soap is to eliminate weeds. Even though killing weeds will not be a top survival concern, in a disaster scenario getting rid of any weeds in your lawn or garden can at the very least help cheer you up. Mix dish soap with water and salt, and it will eliminate all weeds while not harming the rest of your plants.
Clear Up Fog On Glasses and Goggles
Sunglasses, eyeglasses, or goggles that have become fogged up can be extremely annoying not to mention downright dangerous in certain situations. Fortunately, by simply pouring just a small amount of dish soap and then rubbing it with a clean rag, you can make all the fog go away in an instant.
Treat Poison Ivy Blisters
Poison ivy blisters are extremely painful and spread rapidly. Fortunately, dish soap will both help to stop the spreading and calm down the pain at the same time. In fact, it’s probably the best DIY treatment for poison ivy there is.
Unclog The Toilet
Last but not least, you can even use your dish soap to unclog your toilet. Keeping your toilet in good condition is actually the wise thing to do in a disaster scenario because the last thing you want to do is dispose of human waste outside where disease can spread. Simply pour a cup of dish soap into the toilet, and let it sit for at least twenty minutes. Then pour in a bucket of warm water, and it should begin flushing normally after that.
If you have any comments then please drop us a message on our Outdoor Revival Facebook page
If you have a good story to tell or blog let us know about it on our FB page, we’re also happy for article or review submissions, we’d love to hear from you.
We live in a beautiful world, get out there and enjoy it.
Outdoor Revival – Reconnecting us all with the Outdoors