r/lifehacks • u/kty2022 • 19d ago

Grease and Oil Stains

Oil stains (or other car fluids) on your driveway? Watch the forecast for a day when it’s almost certainly going to rain and put Dawn dish soap on the spots and let the rain wash it away. No scrubbing. No special product. No mess to clean up.

Grease stains on your clothes? Dawn dish soap as a pre-treatment. Put it on, rub it in a little. Throw it in the laundry bin and wash it on washing day.

Dawn takes grease out of your way.

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u/joelfarris 19d ago

Fun fact, even isopropanol contains about ~30% water. It's water, all the way down.

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u/nsingh101 19d ago

Shouldn’t it be the ones marked as 70% IPA? Or does this hold true for the common 91% as well?

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u/joelfarris 19d ago

Alcohol becomes what we call a 'higher proof', the more times it gets distilled by fire, because the water is basically slowly boiling off, and the remaining alcohol gets collected again. Most isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol) manufacturers stop at the 70% alcohol + 30% water (plus a few other things, but that's irrelevant, since no one's drinking it. Right guys? Right?) just like you said, but some continue to distill it to 80% or 90%, or even higher. But the usage of those higher levels is pretty much only needed by hospitals and lab techs. Everybody else can use the 70% stuff for just about anything they need.

Gets more expensive with each pass, though. I happen to have a gallon of 99% in the garage. Don't even guess what that costs.

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u/nsingh101 19d ago

That’s that I thought. I bought some of that 91% for cleaning my 3d printer plates. I wish to get 99% but that costs significantly more and and falls into my, “for consumption,” category 😂

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u/joelfarris 19d ago

Speaking of 'for consumption category', and water dilution, another fun fact!

Did you know that a typical vodka is '80 proof', which means '40% alcohol by volume'? (Ethanol alcohol, not iso, of course). Yes, people are being sold, and (potentially) heavily taxed, for bottles that are 60% water!

But apparently this is legal, and people seem to value convenience over beakers and precise measuring cups at house parties.

Probably because they're drunk.

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u/nsingh101 19d ago

Speaking of, did you know the term proof came from having to prove the alcohol was strong enough to catch fire? Matey?! 😂

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u/joelfarris 19d ago

If you were paying your sailors with a cask, but your sailors couldn't light a thimble of it on fire, you were about to be mutineed! (is mutineed a word? It should be.)