A cup of hot tea is my cup of tea! This healthy beverage is an incredibly delicious way to reduce stress and start or end the day.
Yet, if you are a tea-lover too, you probably do the same mistake as me and throw the tea bag immediately after steeping. Well, apparently, there are numerous wiser ways to use the tea bags than just throwing them in the garbage.
Here are 17 excellent ways in which you can use them:
Keep Hands Smelling Fresh- After meals that leave a strong smell on your hands, like some spices, fish, garlic, or crabs, rub them with a moist tea, as it will absorb the scent and leave them smelling fresh.
- Your best choice: You can use any kind, but tea bags with stronger scents, like peppermint, give the best results.
Compost Them
- To nurture the soil with nutrients and deter pests, compost tea bags or even water the plants with a brew made from the leftover tea. Yet, you should get rid of the staples before throwing them in the compost pile.
Your best choice: Any used tea bags will be beneficial.
Quick Mouthwash
- Soak an old tea bag in warm water and use it as a mouthwash to freshen your breath.
- Your best choice: Sage and rosemary tea bags, as well as unused peppermint and spearmint tea bags.
Treat Infections
- You can effectively treat topical afflictions, fever blisters, canker sores, and pink eye, by applying warm used tea bags on the place.
- Your best choice: Any tea type can serve the cause, but herbal ones will provide stronger antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.
Eliminate bad smells
- Tea leaves absorb odors and are perfect for absorbing the bad smell from the fridge, carpet, kitty litter, trash can, and more.
- Fridge: Keep old used tea bags in the fridge.
- Carpet: You should sprinkle dried tea leaves from your tea bags over the rugs and carpets, leave them a bit, and the vacuum them up.
- Cat litter: To prevent the spread of the odor, mix the dried tea leaves directly in the kitty litter.
- Trash: put the tea bags in the trash container.
- Your best choice: Any kind will provide great effects.
Soothe Razor Burn
- Moisten several tea bags up with warm water, and apply them as a compress on the razor burn to soothe the skin and diminish the rash.
- Your best choice: Calming herbs like lavender and chamomile tea bags.
Hair Rinse
- Old tea bags can be used as an incredibly nutritious hair rinse which will soften the hair, condition it, and provide lustrous shine.
- Prepare a weak tea and rinse the hair with it after shampooing the hair.
- Your best choice: Any tea bags will provide amazing effects.
A Portable Custom Air Freshener
- Tie a tea bag in the car to give it a pleasant scent, or you can even add a few drops of some essential oil and hang it up in it to get a natural, non-toxic car freshener.
- Your best choice: Lavender, mint, or jasmine tea bags.
Prevent Grease from Sticking to Your Dishes
- The used tea bags break the grease and burned-on foods from the dishes and pots. Just soak a few of them in the dish, and wash it off in the morning.
- Your best choice: Any used tea bags will give excellent effects.
Enrich Your Tub
- You should just leave the bath water run over the used tea bag, or leave them to soak in the bath.
- Your best choice: Rosemary, green, jasmine, chamomile, lavender, white, calendula, and peppermint are all great for the cause.
Keep Mice at bay
- Mice, ants, and spiders detest the smell of mint, so you can use the old mint tea bag as a natural repellent. Just place it by the door, in the cabinets, in corners, and near mouse holes to keep them at bay.
- Your best choice: Peppermint and spearmint tea bags.
Relaxation and Anti-inflammatory Properties
Tea bags have powerful anti-inflammatory properties, so they relax the body and treat toothaches, tired eyes, blisters, sunburn, bruises, bug bites, and more.
A toothache: To soothe a toothache, just put a warm teabag over the area on the outside.
- Tired or puffy eyes: Moisten two old tea bags, and place them on the eyes to act for a few minutes.
- Blister: You can use a warm teabag to help treat the blister.
- Sunburn: Apply a few moistened tea bags over the affected area.
- Bruises: To accelerate the healing of the bruises, moisten the tea bag with warm water and place it over the affected area.
- Bug bites: Apply a moistened tea bag over the affected area to take the sting out of a bug bite and soothe the itching.
- Your best choice: peppermint, calendula, lavender, and chamomile tea bags.
Healthier Plants
- To boost the growth of your plants, put several used tea bags in the bottom of the flower pots, just at the draining site. This will supply nutrients and keep the soil moist.
- Your best choice: Plants hate caffeine, so you should use herbal tea bags.
Treat Warts
- Warts are unattractive and annoying, and plantar warts can also be painful, but the old tea bags will be of great here as well. Moisten up an old tea bag with warm water and leave it on the wart to act at least once daily.
- Your best choice: Green tea is one of the best choices.
A Homemade Dye
- Steep old tea bags and use them to highlight the hair, and get brown, orange, and green tones. Moreover, they can also be used to dye cards, cloth, homemade crafts, paper for gifts, and more.
- Old tea bags are the perfect non-toxic dye for kids! You can even use old tea bags to stain wood or dye your hair.
- Your best choice: Hibiscus will give you reddish and pinkish highlight, black tea will give you brown color, and green tea provides a light green shade.
Prepare Gourmet Dishes
- The old teabags can add flavor to your dishes, such as rice, pasta, and quinoa. Place an old tea bag in a pot with boiling water, and remove it after a while.
- Your best choice: Cinnamon, jasmine, chai, and green tea.
Stop Poison Ivy
- If you got poison ivy or got a blister from the rash on your skin, apply an old tea bag to the affected area to absorb the oil. Also, you can warm that tea bag up with a bit of warm water and then apply it on the site.
- Your best choice: Peppermint soothes the skin and relieves the itching.
Storing old tea bags
To ensure that your old tea bags will provide the desired effects, you need to store them properly for the time you will need them. Therefore, keep them at room temperature for up to 24 hours, and afterward, refrigerate them. Their scent will indicate the time when you need to throw them away.
Therefore, these 17 ways to creatively use the old tea bags undoubtedly open new perspectives!
Why don’t you try them immediately after you have your cup of tea today?
