How Do Century-Old Lifehacks Hold Up Today?

This site is filled with lifehacks, but most of them are from the last 10-15 years. And lifehacks have been around a lot longer than that. So, how do tips from the past stand up today? HouseholdHackers tried a few and recorded the results.

The channel managed to get a hold of “hundreds” of tips from the early 1900s, cooked up by a UK company called Gallaher Ltd (now Gallaher Group).

They didn’t try all of them, just a select few, which I’ve listed below, alongside the specifics of the tip:

  • How to pull out long nails (with a block of wood)
  • How to take ink stains out of a handkerchief (with milk)
  • How to cut new bread into thin slices (blade heated with water)
  • How to clean new boots (with a lemon)
  • How to pack choice flowers (use a potato)
  • How to measure with coins (if you have a half-crown)
  • How to make a spirit level (corked tube with water)
  • How to cool wine without ice (wrap it with flannel under running water)

Surprisingly, most of them work, though some are a waste of time, like washing a stain with milk. For one, the stain really doesn’t come out (well, no better than using water) and secondly, your shirt will smell like old milk.

Nice.

However, if you’re stuck with a grubby boot, you could do worse than rub half-a-lemon on it and a warm blade is useful for cutting many a thing (as is a spoon when it comes to hard ice cream).

100-Year-Old Life Hacks You Didn’t Know Existed [YouTube]


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


One response to “How Do Century-Old Lifehacks Hold Up Today?”

Leave a Reply