Don't Believe Everything You Read Online — These 10 Life Hacks Definitely Don't Work

You may have heard quite a few seemingly brilliant hacks through the grapevine, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they work.

Scrolling through my various feeds every day, I probably encounter at least 10 hack-related pieces. Now don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of a good life hack, but there’s a clear difference between writing about an awesome way to defog your car windows using a potato peeler and actually doing it. Remember that seeing is believing!

With that being said, there are plenty of tricks on the internet that quite frankly just don’t work. So before you end up wasting your precious time and money, here are 10 life hacks that you should avoid.

1. Life Hack: Urinating on a jellyfish sting can relieve the pain.

The Honest Truth: Urine can irritate the wound and it has the potential to be more harmful to the sting.

2. Life Hack: Storing batteries in the fridge makes them last longer.

The Honest Truth: Cold temperatures can actually shorten the lifespan of a battery, and the chilliness can cause corrosion.

3. Life Hack: You can quickly make a grilled cheese by doing the same thing you’d do in a pan in a toaster turned on its side.

The Honest Truth: Adding buttered bread to a toaster is just asking for a grease fire. Oh, and when it pops up? Prepare for a cheesy mess.

4. Life Hack: By opening a small hole, you can shake un-popped kernels of popcorn from the bag so they don’t get in the way of your snacking.

The Honest Truth: There is some truth to this hack…if you can spare the time to shake your popcorn until every last kernel frees itself from the bag. By the time you do that, however, you’ll have to eat cold popcorn. No one wants that.

5. Life Hack: Placing a wooden spoon over a pot of boiling water will prevent the pot from boiling over.

The Honest Truth: If your pot is truly at a rapid boil, you have to turn the temperature down. Your spoon isn’t going to do anything.

6. Life Hack: You can cut cherry tomatoes by placing them in one layer between two plates and slicing through.

The Honest Truth: This will work, but you have to have a chef-grade knife to do it. Oh, and don’t fool yourself. This will make a mess either way.

7. Life Hack: You can transform a toilet paper tube into a makeshift speaker.

The Honest Truth: The sound might actually be muffled by the tube. Use a bowl instead. It will shoot the sound straight into the air because the surface is denser.

8. Life Hack: Use a ketchup squeeze bottle to make perfect pancakes.

The Honest Truth: Good luck making sure your batter is the right consistency to fit through the nozzle. It could work if you use a funnel to get the batter into the bottle, but the kiddos will be antsy by the time you pull that off.

9. Life Hack: A tennis ball with a hole drilled through it can open up your car door without a key.

The Honest Truth: There’s not a whole lot of proof out there that says this really works. Especially in newer cars, there’s just not enough air in a tennis ball to pop locks open.

10. Life Hack: Remove a wine cork using a nail and a hammer.

The Honest Truth: This hack doesn’t actually work unless you use multiple nails in the cork. It’s probably less stress-inducing to just run to the store and pick up a corkscrew.

(via Business Insider)

Doing a bit of research before committing to all the life hacks you see online is always helpful. Which hacks have you tried that ended up being total duds?

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