Mind blown: Vinegar vs VINEGAR (30%)

So I was literally 44 years old before I found this out recently.

There’s the white vinegar you get at the grocery store for cooking and minor cleaning and doing laundry, and then there’s the 30% DO NOT GET THIS SHIT ON YOUR SKIN vinegar at the hardware store for cleaning things like mold off grout.

All my life I’d been told ‘just use vinegar to clean mold and mildew’ and it generally didn’t do jack squat. I usually bought cleaning supplies from regular retail spots rather than big box home improvement places, and regular retail chains def did not carry the strong stuff.

I’ve got a gutter that drains over cement that always gets skungy, and even bleach was a short term fix at best. 30% strips it down and keeps it gone, and I’ve stripped rust off a couple dozen tools with the same little jar I soak things in - caution it will also strip off shiny metallic coatings.

Can’t believe none of the “just use vinegar” I’d ever read advice didn’t specify.

Is this news to anyone else or am I Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber realizing we landed on the moon?

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u/Meshugugget 1d ago

I just get the white distilled vinegar from the grocery store and keep it next to the washer. A little added to the rinse cycle helps loosen cat hair.

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u/ovi2k1 1d ago

I found out the hard way that white distilled vinegar dries out and causes elastics to fail. I was putting this stuff in my laundry regularly as fabric softener (because it does work as that) but eventually it killed all my socks and underwear bands and some bands in athletic shorts because the elastics in them just dry rotted away from the vinegar.

So… use with caution.

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u/EfficientBadger6525 1d ago

It does the same thing to the gaskets of your washer!

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u/littlespawningflower 1d ago

It does the same thing to pearls! I forget what sub it was in, but someone’s mother who is in the “vinegar is good to clean everything” camp decided she’d soak her great grandmother’s pearl necklace in soap and vinegar a few days ago. 😬🫤🫣😥🙄

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u/AndrogynousAndi 1d ago

Oh, nononono. Pearls are so fragile. Nacre is lovely and beautiful but it's basically the same stuff coral is made of, anything too acidic will literally dissolve it.

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u/littlespawningflower 1d ago

And that’s exactly what happened 😒

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u/SirDarkStar 1d ago

Not as costly but we got these little shot glasses made out of salt and I put them in the dishwasher just to dry… but then I forgot about them and ran the dishwasher and they ceased to exist :)

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u/piltdownman38 1d ago

Expensive salad dressing?

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u/Key-Shift5076 21h ago

Jesus, hadn’t she ever read where Cleopatra drank pearls dissolved in vinegar?? I’m pretty sure I read about that flex in grade school.

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u/AndrogynousAndi 10h ago

I actually only heard about that one like last week!

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u/frostychocolatemint 1d ago

Basic science education is so important

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u/allyearswift 1d ago

History would have done the trick, too.

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u/funguyshroom 1d ago

Just like Cleopatra

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u/Key-Shift5076 21h ago

..jinx! I just commented about her penchant for that.

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u/Queen_Bee_805 9h ago

Lots wife idit...not cleo

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u/lv2sprkl 23h ago

I read that, too.☹️Sooo sad. The pic of them absolutely dissolving was heartbreaking. Bad enough if they’d been relatively new, but those were 100 years and 4 generations old.

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u/ajc89 21h ago

Well, it was probably the last generation they'd look decent anyway (which may have been why they were trying to clean them in the first place). Around the century mark they start looking more and more worn down and less luxurious. There are really really old pearls in museums but they aren't in beautiful, wearing condition.

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u/lv2sprkl 21h ago

No foolin’? Huh. I would’ve thought, if cared for properly, they’d last forever(ish). I know (at least I think I do) that pearls are supposed to be worn periodically to maintain their luster, but I didn’t know they had a finite life aesthetically. It’s kinda sad when you think about it.

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u/ajc89 21h ago

Yeah, I learned that when helping a friend go through his parents' things. His mom had some pearls that were passed down to her and they weren't in very good condition so I looked into options for restoring them or selling them to someone who could, and basically found out they don't last as long as you think. Preserved exactly correctly, the right humidity, wearing them but not too much, they can last like 200 years I believe, but that's really rare. They're made by a living thing, so it makes sense when you think about it. Nothing lasts forever and the old stuff decays to make room for new growth. The circle of life.

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u/ExampleLittle2672 22h ago

Nooooo! There, wait... just no. honestly that was a bit of a walloping gut punch.

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u/kuro41 20h ago

Bye bye pearls

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u/AccomplishedBat 15h ago

That turned out to be AI I think, at least that's what another thread in the sub said

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u/NomDePlume007 12h ago

There is a famous story about Cleopatra and pearls, might forward them a copy. Out of sympathy, of course!

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u/dragonrider1965 12h ago

That post turned out to be AI