New uses for old products: toothpaste and a muffin pan

Just for fun, I thought I’d share a couple of new ideas for products you already have around the house!

Earlier this week, I ran into one of my blog readers at our local CVS, and he said that he’s reached the “toothpaste saturation” point. Even when it’s free, he’s done buying because he’s just got enough! I said that I think we’ve all been there (toothpaste is certainly one of those things couponers consistently get free or dirt-cheap) but he could still donate or use the toothpaste for other things.

“Other things?” he said?

I shared that I use it to clean my fiberglass shower floor. He said “Really?”

Yep. And at the risk of showing you my shower in an embarrassingly less-than-clean state, I must share that toothpaste is the greatest thing to turn a shower floor from grimy to new-house clean in just a few minutes. And before I show you said dirty shower floor, I’m also going to warn you that the boys of the house have been spending a lot of time outdoors this month, and when they come in with their dirty little feet, where does the dirt end up? In the shower.

So grab a tube of (cheap, free) toothpaste and a scrub brush, and check this out:

This is after about five minutes of scrubbing… not bad!

And here’s the finished floor after I rinsed it by turning the shower on! Nice!

Note that I wouldn’t use toothpaste on the shower walls – they’re smooth, and toothpaste is still an abrasive, albeit a mild one. I think the combination of scrub brush and toothpaste might scratch the walls. But the pebbled floor? This is a fast, easy, CHEAP way to get it clean. For a couponer, toothpaste is certainly much cheaper than bathroom cleaner! I’ve also used toothpaste and a scrub brush to clean porcelain sinks.

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The second new-use-for-old-product came to me by way of the Consumerist site this week, one of my favorite pro-consumer blogs. Their headline read “You don’t need the Perfect Tortilla pan. No one does.”

This caught my eye because my husband has been swooning over the Perfect Tortilla pan every time the ad airs on TV. I too fell prey for a few days when I spotted banner ads for it in one of my web advertising providers – doesn’t it look cute? Doesn’t it make you think about having fabulous taco-bowl salads at home?

I put the banner on the blog, then clicked on it myself… and realized that while Perfect Tortilla pans are just $10 for four, the $15.90 shipping brings the actual price of the pans to $25.90. Ouch. And I took the banner down. (It’s back for this post if you want to click over and watch their hypnotizing Tortilla Bowl commercial.) But it isn’t worth spending that much on as you probably already have a tortilla-bowl maker in your cabinet!

What is it?

A muffin pan. Via Consumerist:

Every time I look at a TV during the last few weeks, I see ads for the Perfect Tortilla, a wavy mold designed to help you make lovely edible bowls out of a regular store-bought tortilla. At home, visiting family, even at a sports bar: the ad is everywhere. What makes it annoying isn’t the spokesman who resembles a bald Billy Mays. It’s that this product is useless, even by the rarified standards of as-seen-on-TV merchandise.

If you really do aspire to eat a tortilla bowl-centric diet, you don’t need to buy a special product that takes up cabinet space. As food blogger Emily Bites showed the world more than a year ago, you need to turn your muffin pan over.

And there it is. While this method makes a four-cornered bowl instead of a six-cornered one… it also saves you more than $25. The EmilyBites blog tells you just how to prepare them – spray each side of the tortilla with cooking spray, insert into an inverted muffin tin, and bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!