13 So-Called “Life Hacks” That Are Actually Dangerous Advice People Need To Stop Sharing

10.

“Vinegar and baking soda together for cleaning.”

—Technical_Employ1826

“Let’s talk about why this one came about and why it’s silly:

Vinegar can be used for cleaning, and baking soda can be used for cleaning. But, maybe surprisingly, using both at the same time doesn’t ‘stack.’ They neutralize each other.

Vinegar is a watered-down acid (acetic acid), and baking soda is a base (sodium bicarbonate). Both of those are corrosive chemicals. The former has a pH lower than seven, and the latter has a pH higher than seven.

So yeah, if you put strong enough vinegar on something, there’s a good chance that it’ll eat at whatever grime or surface area it touches. Likewise, if you put baking soda on something, it will also eat away at that. That’s why they’re used in cleaning products, especially to kill mold and microbes, which are really sensitive to their environment’s pH balance.

Like any combination of acid and base, when you mix vinegar and baking soda together, you get water and sodium acetate salt (there are many other salts besides table salt). Water has a pH of seven and is completely neutral, being neither an acid nor a base, which is why life on Earth loves that stuff.

So, effectively, when you mix vinegar and baking soda, they cancel each other out to some degree, and you’re just wiping things down with a weakened, watered-down version of the stronger one.

All that said, it can be useful to clean something with one of them first and then use the other one as a second pass. Like if your washing machine is starting to leave your clothes mildewy, after physically cleaning its filters, you can run a bunch of white vinegar through it to help sterilize the plumbing. Then, to kill the vinegar smell, run an empty load with baking soda. Then maybe run one more empty load with just detergent and water to completely flush the corrosive chemicals so you don’t end up ‘bleaching’ your clothes.

By the way: Literal bleach is a strong base, which is why it’s so good at killing germs and dissolving stuff. So mixing vinegar and bleach also leaves you with a weaker solution.

Also, if it needs to be said, NEVER EVER mix bleach and ammonia because that will immediately create a lethal gas.

Edited bonus trivia: A supersaturated solution of sodium acetate is what they use in those little hand warmer goo packets.”

—CaptainDudeGuy