We’ve had an email from Plum:

We’ve got five bottles of mouthwash in the bathroom cupboard – all tried once but never again because they were vile! I was wondering if you had an idea if they could be used for any household cleaning tasks like brown sauce on brass.

Good question. In my experience, most awful tasting mouthwashes are very alcohol-y and alcohol does have antibacterial/antiseptic qualities — does anyone know if it would be enough for cleaning instead of rubbing alcohol?

If you don’t mind having a minty face, I suspect it could be used as a facial toner – a lot of toners have similar amounts of alcohol in them (although alcohol in toners is very drying – the best skin thing I ever did was switching away to alcohol-free cleaning products).

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had a message from Helen, asking:

I have a rubber bath mat that the kids don’t seem to need any more. It’s (to be frank) a bit manky so I feel I can’t freecycle it. However I don’t want to just chuck it either. Is there a way to recycle something like this?

All suggestions gratefully received!

I’m sure there are tons of ways to reuse them around the home and garden. The first ones that spring to mind take advantage of the fact it’s non-slip – cut circles out of the least manky parts and there you go, non-slip mats for underneath plant pots or the like

Any other ideas?

(Oh, and if you’re wondering about fabric bathmats, we covered them a few months ago.)

Statement necklaces are apparently where it’s at fashion wise at the moment and Nancy from 21centurydressmakers made herself a fab piece to wear on New Year’s Eve – made from old shampoo bottles.

I love the different colours (such pretty blue and a lovely vibrant orange!) and the oval shapes – and how the curved shapes of the original bottles add to the finished shape of the necklace.

Awesome work, Nancy! Check out the how-to on her site if you want to make your own.

We’ve had an email from Kevin:

What can I do with broken tiles? I’ve just retiled my bathroom and was careful taking the old ones off but most of them cracked in half.

I also have some whole sample tiles that I got from the supplier from when I was choosing. I’m going to use one of the big ones as a hot dish plate in the kitchen but don’t know what to do with the smaller ones.

Following on from your trivet idea, smaller sample tiles would make good coasters or a place to rest your wooden spoon while cooking – especially if they’re pretty or nicely coloured.

Depending on their condition, the cracked ones could be used to “crazy tile” somewhere that doesn’t need to look 100% (like a storage cellar or shed) or smashed up further for a crazy mosaic effect. Offer them on Freecycle if you don’t want to do it yourseld – someone else might like the idea.

(If you fancy renovating them for reusing, I’ve used a translucent glass paint thing to paint ceramic tiles in the past – it let the original gloss of the tile shine through but it wasn’t particularly hard wearing and couldn’t handle being scrubbed clean. Other tile paint is thicker so harder wearing but it can easily look messy and a bit weird because it’s opaque and gloopy. Anyone else got any advice about this?)

Aside from that, there is always crocks for the bottom of plant pots.

Any other ideas?

(Photo by ftibor)

The post about hair gel last month reminded me that I’ve got an almost full canister of hairspray in the back of our bathroom cupboard.

I bought it way back in the day one summer when I was trying everything and anything to try to stop my curls turning instantly to frizz. It didn’t work so was relegated to the cupboard of forgotten toiletries.

I don’t know anyone else that uses spray – all by friends either have shaved heads or prefer their hair to move instead of being rock solid – so 1980s-theme parties aside, I won’t be able to find a good home for it that way. But the responses to the hair gel suggestion made me wonder if it could be used as an adhesive or something like that instead. Anyone know?

Or anyone got any other suggestions?