Fact or Fiction: Household Remedies

Myth! In three trials in our food appliances lab, cold water always won the race. The Good Housekeeping Research Institute filled one tray with hot water and the other with cold, then recorded the time it took each to reach 32 degrees F. Every time, the cold water cubes froze faster. As for crystal-clear cubes, you'll have to get a professional, restaurant-style ice-cube-making machine, because neither hot nor cold water in regular ice cube trays will produce clear cubes, just the foggy ones you're used to.

True! But it's not very practical, since you'll need a tremendous amount of juice after shampooing your dog - and we're not talking about a couple of small cans. Plus, you might also stain your pet's fur pink. Some vets swear by commercial de-skunking products like Skunk-Off. The Bobst Hospital of the Animal Medical Center in New York City recommends a solution of 1 cup of white vinegar diluted with 1 gallon of water. But Good Housekeeping veterinarian Holly Cheever says that nothing will get rid of skunk odors completely.

True! But only to an extent. The chemical properties in baking soda will neutralize unpleasant odors caused by sour milk, tuna or cabbage but won't make them disappear entirely. To test baking soda's effectiveness, our food appliances lab placed an open jar of chopped garlic in two refrigerators for two days. In the first fridge, they put an open box of baking soda and let it sit for 24 hours. Then, they put the Institute's noses into action. The sniffing testers noted that there was less odor in the refrigerator that contained the baking soda, but that the odor still existed.

Myth! This stain removal trick doesn't work as well as it used to. Hairsprays were once loaded with alcohol, which was the ingredient that got out the ink stains. However, nowadays hairsprays have lower levels of alcohol or are even alcohol-free because alcohol dries out your hair. Next time you're confronted with an ink blotch to remove, don't rummage through your beauty supplies. Instead, look in your medicine cabinet for rubbing alcohol. Place a paper towel under the stain to absorb the wet ink. Then dab at it with a cotton ball that's been dipped in rubbing alcohol or use an alcohol wipe. Repeat until the stain is gone.

Myth! This one is still a myth in our book. The GH Research Institute's appliances and cleaning products applied four stains (Italian dressing, tomato sauce, coffee with milk and sugar, and ballpoint ink) to two sets of cotton, polyester and poly/cotton fabric swatches. Fluoride toothpaste was applied to one set of each of the stains on each of the fabrics. Then the clothes were machine-laundered in warm water and line-dried. No toothpaste was applied to the control set, but it was laundered and line-dried as well. The toothpaste didn't give great results. Only the ink stain on the cotton fabric came out with the toothpaste. And if you give an ink-stained shirt a brisk brushing with toothpaste, you'll still have to launder out the white, pasty stuff. "It's an expensive and ineffective way to treat stains," says home-care director Carolyn Forte "Stick to regular prewash products." She recommends Shout and Spray 'n Wash.

Myth! "It's just amazing. This myth travels like wildfire on Internet cooking and food sites," says Carol Wapner, associate director of the GH nutrition lab. "But if you oversalt your soup, a potato won't really help you." The GH Research Institute's nutrition and chemistry departments ran a test, putting 2 teaspoons of salt in cream of asparagus soup instead of the 1/4 teaspoon required, and measured the sodium content. Then, a peeled and quartered russet potato was stirred in for 15 minutes. A subsequent analysis revealed that the sodium concentrations were virtually the same with and without the potato. If you've really oversalted your soup, add water, a little bit at a time, to dilute the salt level. Just don't forget to adjust the other seasonings as well.

Myth! File this one under the myth category. The GH Research Institute's appliances and cleaning products department took two identical men's cotton T-shirts and thoroughly measured them. Both were hand-washed, one in a solution of hot water, a cup of cold chamomile tea and laundry detergent; the other without the tea. They were both rinsed in cold water. Then, they were rinsed in cold water and hung dry. The addition of the tea to the water didn't significantly reduce the overall shrinkage of the shirt.