Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

Tip: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

Ideas for using dental floss other than flossing your teeth. Post your ideas!

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Here are some ideas:

Cookie Removal

Use to remove stubborn cookies from a cookie sheet.

Clean Between the Cracks

Use dental floss to clean gook from furniture joints. Cut Cheesecake

Wrap the dental floss around each finger and slide it through the cheesecake.

Use it As Thread Works well for sewing on buttons or mending large holes in backpacks or canvas. (08/26/2004)

By ThriftyFun

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I use it to make bracelets and necklaces. As a project with my son, we take rubbing alcohol and mix it with food coloring until its the color we like it. Then we soak macaroni in interesting shapes in it for appr. 30 minutes and let it dry overnight. The next day we string them like beads using the dental floss in place of thread. It's alot stronger and will hold up a lot better under the not so delicate care of younger children. You could use anything you like, beads, shells, it's your imagination and a fun family project. (08/26/2004)

By Suzanne S.

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

Bring along some dental floss on vacation to use as a makeshift clothes line in a hotel or camping. It's small and cheap. Double up the line several times for heavier items. (08/27/2004)

By coolchinchilla

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

Waxed floss works great for cutting out dinner rolls or cinnamon rolls or sugar cookies. Refrigerate dough to make firm and place floss approx. required distance from end of rolled dough under edge of roll and cross the left side to the right and the right side to the left over the top and pull tightly and it will cut evenly through. (08/28/2004)

By Tawnda

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I cut the top off a a small plastic coke bottle by squeezing it with the lid off and cutting with large scissors. Then I squeeze the side and make a small cut there. I then put dental floss or whatever string is available through there and hang plants that thrive in water all over the patio garden. They are so adorable. I also sell these at garage sales. I have lots of morning glory vines thata need trimming and I just recycle these into coke bottle containers and use them again! (09/07/2004)

By Racing against thimerosol

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

Use it to mend holes in playpen netting. (09/09/2007)

By Linda

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

You can use dental floss to remove pictures from the old magnetic albums without damaging the picture. Just slide it under one corner and move it back and forth until you get to the other side of the photo. (09/09/2007)

By Sharon R.

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

When making a cake and it is over the top of the pan but isn't equally flat on the top, simply wrap your fingers around each end of a piece of dental floss and drag the string across the lip of the pie pan, using a sawing motion. It will make a nice even cut and you can use the piece left over by turning it upside down and placing it on the low end. Giving you an even cake for decorating. (09/09/2007)

By George C

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I use floss to hang pictures on the wall if I don't have any wire. I also hold back my tall flowers to the fence with floss. At Christmas my kids and I make ornaments and use the green mint floss to hang them on the tree. (09/09/2007)

By Kris

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

The filter to my swimming pool has a yellow cap on top that has to be turned to let air out. The cap has a washer which always wears out by the end of the season. Without the washer the filter leaks so I raveled dental floss around the end of the yellow cap to take the place of the tiny washer that broke. It worked all summer. It's lasting longer than the washer did. (09/09/2007)

By Ivette

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

If the screw comes out of your glasses frame, and you don't have a safety pin to hold it til you get to the Optomotrist, thread a piece of dental floss through the joint and tie it off. It holds for weeks as long as you're careful with it. (09/09/2007)

By Pianoladee

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

My daughter told me to use dental floss for my ingrown toenail. I took one of those flossing picks with a sharp point, wound about 2 or 3 inches of floss around the pick, slid it off the pick and gently tucked it up under my toenail next to the ingrown area with the point of the pick. It adheres nicely under the nail and pushes the ingrown nail away from the toe. It only took about three days for the nail to begin to grow back as it normally should and the pain was gone immediately. Just to aid in the pain, I took some softening cream that I picked up from the drug store designed for ingrown toe nails and put it on the toe. Then I put a bandaid on the toe to allow the medication to soften the nail. I had been using the medication, but it wasn't helping the nail to grow away from the toe. After about three or four days of treatment..no more sore toe! (09/09/2007)

By Norma

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I've been sewing up my turkeys with dental floss for 25 years or more -- works great because it's strong. One snip when it's done and it pulls right out. (09/09/2007)

By Diane

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

This tip is for sewers. Simply zig zag over the floss along the edge of the fabric that you want to gather. No matter how long the gather needs to be, the floss will not break as you pull it and gather your fabric. It works like a charm every time. When you use waxed floss, the gathers glide along the floss. It's also great for hand sewing ribbons on ballet shoes since it's stronger than thread. (09/09/2007)

By Red

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I have used waxed floss to remove a ring that I could not get off due to swollen fingers. I put 3 inches under the tight ring, and wrapped on the nail side of the ring spiraling enough floss to get past my knuckle. Wrapping and wrapping in a spiral until it was past my knuckle. I then pulled the end that was under my ring and it kind of walked the ring right off my finger. You have to work quick since you are putting pressure on the blood supply when it is wrapped. It worked great. (09/09/2007)

By Renee

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

To remove a ring that won't slide off your finger: wrap WAXED floss tightly around the finger, starting from the fingernail down to just above the ring. Slightly loosen the floss as you wrap downwards so the blood will be forced out temporarily. This will "deflate" the finger,making it easier to slide the ring off. Soap and water applied to the ring will make it slippier. Wrap over the knuckle very tightly since this is the "sticking point." (09/09/2007)

By Ed

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I use waxed dental floss to string real pearls. It is thicker and is able to stick to and secure each pearl. Its also so very strong it won't break. (09/10/2007)

By Courtney

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I've been using dental floss for years to remove skin tags from my neck! It's sometimes difficult to tie the knot around the skin tag, but once you do, pull the floss tight. Leave the strings hanging for a few hours (while you do housework or watch television). The blood supply to the skin tag gets cut off and eventually you can just pick the floss off your skin (tag attached) like you are picking a string off a sweater! It really works and is less painful than having them zapped off at the doctor's office! (09/10/2007)

By Hali

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

Re: using dental floss as a necklace (eg to string pearls)... VERY bad idea, unless you enjoy being garotted. Real pearl strings are designed to be strong enough to carry the pearls, but weak enough to break if strong force is applied - and that is to save your neck! Think about it - do you want the superb cutting ability of dental floss, as detailed in so many hints here, to be applied to your neck arteries? (09/28/2007)

By foris

RE: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I use it in my weave, I looks like colored highlights, but It's just different flavors of dental floss. I learned it from the streets, back when I was homeless. Gotta keep some style flowin'! (10/01/2007)

By chattamouf87