Is It Less-Painful To Rip Off A Band-Aid If You Blow Dry It First?


Bandages are, literally, a pain to remove, but Redditor wallaceeffect believes he has a solution: blow dry the bandage on high heat before ripping it off. I decided to give this a try and find out if warm air really made a difference.

Here’s what wallaceeffect suggests:

Have to rip off a bandaid? Blast it with warm air from a hairdryer for a few seconds beforehand. This softens the adhesive and makes it easier to pull off. The heat softens/partially melts the adhesive so it doesn’t hurt so much to pull off. It will still be somewhat painful (particularly if there are hairs caught in it) but it helps significantly.

To test this, I put two standard bandages on my arm. I made sure to cover some hair so removing one the normal way would definitely hurt. When I ripped it off, I felt a moderate amount of pain. Then, I used the blow dryer to heat up the other bandage for about 10-15 seconds. When I removed it, I felt no pain at all. That said, blow drying my arm on high heat wasn’t exactly comfortable. While this tip seems to work, to some extent you are choosing between two types of pain: the quick removal of a band-aid or the slightly longer feeling of an overheated appendage. It’s up to you!

Want to see this extremely scientific test in action? Watch the video above.

LPT: Have to rip off a bandaid? [Reddit]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


2 responses to “Is It Less-Painful To Rip Off A Band-Aid If You Blow Dry It First?”

Leave a Reply