Polish Your Shoes With A Banana

If you’ve got a few over-ripe bananas lying around (as most of us do), and you’re not the banana-bread type, it turns out they have a few household uses before you toss them in the garbage — like homespun shoe polish.

Bananas, while delicious, are annoying because they release gases that cause fruits (including other bananas in the bunch) to ripen quicker, giving you a small window in which to eat them. However, bananas also contain potassium, which is useful even after the bananas are past the edible stage — in fact, it’s a key ingredient in shoe polish. Thus, you can use the inside of the banana peel to polish your shoes — and still have the fruit left over if you decide you really do want that banana bread. Of course, the banana doesn’t have to be over-ripe to do some shoe-shining, since the peel is the important part.

We hear they actually sell products specifically designed to polish shoes (who’d've thunk?), but the banana-peel polish is a tried and true trick if you’re in a pinch.

How to Polish Shoes With a Banana [VideoJug via DIY Life]