DIY Hacks - OU Edition

We love do-it-yourself. It feels like you can make everything yourself these days and you can find instructions somewhere. There are so many recipes and ideas that you don't even know where to start. That's exactly why we've put together our favorite tips for you. It's not about bombarding you with complicated recipes, but rather showing you very simple hacks that make your everyday life easier, cheaper and less wasteful.

Annette's facial peeling

Quick and easy for direct application:

1 teaspoon rice flour
1-2 tsp olive oil → alternatively water or oil of your choice
1 pinch of baking soda → or sugar or both

Mix everything together and spread it on your face. Then rinse your face with water. Quick, quick: soft skin.
Unlike other flours, rice flour is not powdery, but rather slightly grainy. But not too grainy either. That's why it has exactly the perfect grain size for a very gentle facial scrub. Rice is rich in vitamin E, antioxidants, minerals, amino acids and gamma oryzanol, making it a great, natural beauty product for skin and hair.

To choose the perfect oil:
Normal and combination skin → Sesame oil
Dry skin → olive oil

You can find rice flour in unpackaged stores or in well-stocked organic stores. In our branch at Großbeerenstraße 27A, 10965 Berlin, you can even grind the rice fresh.

Alternatively, you can also chop the rice in a high-performance blender.

Lina's quick nut milk

Nut milk is a real, ongoing zero-waste topic. Slowly but surely, there are one or two alternatives in glass bottles, but the majority are still in the unpopular Tetra Pak. One alternative is to make your own nut milk. But that can take a while, as the nuts have to be soaked first. Lina has a quicker and easier method for us: Nut milk made from nut butter. It tastes just as delicious, is ten thousand times quicker, and you don't need a high-performance blender.

And here's how it works:

For 500 milliliters of quick nut milk you need:
500 ml of water
3-4 tablespoons nut butter, e.g. cashew or almond butter (the more butter, the creamier the milk.)
1 pinch of salt
according to taste: sweeten with 2-3 teaspoons of honey, birch sugar or agave syrup

Mix everything together and stir with any mixer (a traditional hand blender is also suitable) or with a whisk. It will take 5-10 minutes at the most.

Rias hair softener

No more 100 hair masks and synthetic conditioners. An acid rinse does the same, if not better, job. It consists of two ingredients, is inexpensive and very easy to use.

You need:
200 ml cold water
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Simply pour the mixture over wet hair after washing. Depending on your preference, you can rinse your hair afterwards or leave the conditioner in. Preferences are very individual.

The acid rinse acts like a "descaler" for the hair and makes it soft and shiny again. It rebuilds the natural hair structure, which is damaged by limescale and our everyday life. The hair is easier to comb, soap residue is removed and the cuticle is closed. It can be mixed in two minutes and is unbeatably cheap.

Janika's White-Maker

Citric acid is a very versatile miracle cure that can replace many cleaning products and chemicals in your home. 200 years ago it was made from real lemons, but today it is produced industrially. But it still remains an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional cleaning products. Citric acid is particularly indispensable when it comes to limescale.

Janika can no longer imagine her household without citric acid. Her favorite tip: make laundry white again with citric acid. It can also be used to successfully remove yellow stains under the armpits.

There are two possible applications for this:

Softener:
Add about 1 tablespoon per liter of water to the fabric softener compartment of the washing machine. Note: Only for white laundry, otherwise the color will fade.
A nice side effect of this is that the washing machine is immediately descaled.

For even more power:
Soak the (white) laundry with about 1 tablespoon per liter of water for a few hours and then put it directly in the washing machine.

Milena's all-rounder

Milena’s favorite DIY hack: baking soda and water.

You can clean almost anything with baking soda. It can remove odors from the refrigerator or blueberry stains from jeans. And in a pinch, the mixture can also be used as a substitute for deodorant under the armpits.

Nelly's Secondhand Candles

With Nelly's trick, you can give candle wax a second life. Either collect candle remnants yourself or, to speed up the process, ask restaurants and friends for candle remnants. Most restaurants never let the candles burn down, so there's always a lot left over. You can get wicks online in bulk, fairly cheaply.

1. Melt candle remains in a water bath.
2. Place the candle wick in the middle of a cardboard tube (e.g. old toilet rolls).
3. Carefully pour hot, liquid wax into and around the wick.
4. When the wax has cooled (after about 2 hours), peel off the cardboard.

Instead of cardboard rolls, the whole thing can also be made with old cups or jars. Then you've also upcycled a candle holder at the same time.