Amazing Secrets Hidden In Everyday Things - Part 4

There are lots of amazing secrets and hidden purposes in everyday objects around us. Let's find out about some amazing secrets now.

September 14, 2023・

15 min read

Most of us like to assume that we have a pretty good understanding of the objects we use and interact with every day. But did you know that some very common items have secret uses and features that most people never even realize? From a game-changing new way to use salt and pepper shakers, to the secret functions hidden in milk bottles, here are some secrets hidden in everyday things.

Remove Permanent Marker from White Board

Picture this horrific moment. You’re scribbling away on a whiteboard, only to have the sudden realization that, instead of an easy-to-erase whiteboard marker pen, you’ve been using a permanent marker! Usually, this would mean you’ve just ruined a perfectly good whiteboard.

That is until you learn this nifty trick that uses the secret properties of permanent marker ink to remove it! As it turns out, for writing on whiteboards, the pigment of permanent markers isn’t as permanent as it seems.

By covering a permanent marker stain in a dry-erase marker and leaving it for a few moments, you’ll be able to wipe off the permanent ink with surprising ease! This is because dry-erase marker ink contains a solvent that dissolves the pigment in permanent marker ink, making it not-so-permanent, and allowing it to be wiped clean off!

Face Mask Trick

In recent times, face masks have become an everyday item many of us know all too well. But what most people don’t know is that every standard, plain-looking mask comes pre-packaged with a useful hidden feature! It all comes down to this small metal wire found inside most basic masks.

The wire’s actual function is to bend the mask, so it conforms around the bridge of your nose, allowing it to fit more snugly as well as reducing the gap at the top of the mask so that glasses don’t steam up for those users wearing them. This makes the mask comfier, and more importantly, much more effective at keeping your germs away from others and keeping theirs away from your mouth and nose.

But while it’s relatively easy to make a mask feel comfortable on your nose thanks to the wire, it’s another story for your ears. Those elasticated straps can really start to dig into your ears after wearing your mask for an extended period, like on a commute. But there’s a simple fix that utilizes something you may already be wearing anyway while on your journeys.

To regain some comfort, simply hook your mask’s straps around your headphones like the image below. It’ll take the pressure off your ears, freeing your focus to listen to tunes and allowing you to forget that you’re wearing a sweaty, uncomfortable mask at least for a moment.

Extra Scrap Of Cloth

Have you ever noticed those tiny patches of fabric that occasionally come with new items of clothing? If you’re like me, you might’ve assumed these little squares are meant to patch up any holes or rips that occur in your clothing, and reasonably so. But the truth is, these little patches aren’t intended for clothing repair at all.

They’re provided alongside clothing items for you to test what kind of washing is suitable for the clothes. You can send the small patch through a cycle in your washing machine, checking various wash temperatures to ensure it doesn’t shrink or become decolorized. This saves you from making a frustrating and possibly costly mistake on a brand-new garment.

It’s also a handy way to check how stain removers will interact with your item of clothing before risking making a stain even worse on the real thing! But, if you really want to, you could still use the fabric to patch up holes too.

The Hole On The Bottom Of A Padlock

If you’ve ever purchased a padlock, you may have noticed this mysterious little gap sitting at the bottom. Despite what your imagination might lead you to conclude, this isn’t the secret access hole for locksmiths or thieves to pop your lock open.

It’s not even for storing toothpicks for easy access, although if you tried hard enough you could probably make that work for you. The hole’s intended purpose, though, is to allow water that somehow ends up inside the lock to flow back out without rusting the internal mechanisms.

This comes in particularly handy when used outside, like on a garden shed, as internal rust from rain could make the lock impossible to open without breaking. Some locks are also designed so that the hole can be used to pump lubricant into the inner workings, keeping them moving smoothly.

Small Door On The Side Of A Tennis Court Fence

Have you ever been shooting hoops, or partaking in some other activity in a sports court, only to spot one of these mysterious tiny doors along the court fencing? While they come in a range of shapes and sizes, there’s one thing that unifies them all: they’re much too small for a regular-sized human to walk through.

So, are these doors just for any particularly little people who need to quickly evade the court after an especially bad foul? Not quite. They’re actually there for the caretakers of the court so that when they’re sweeping trash or blowing leaves, they can move the refuse outside the court without needing to walk to the entrance.

This is why, when you encounter these tiny doors, they tend to be on the opposite side of the court from the main gate. It’s pretty handy for caretakers, but if you really want to attempt a sliding tackle straight through the gap, you could potentially try that too.

Turn Signal Blinking Fast

Picture the scene: you’re driving along in your car, approaching a junction, and you hit your turn signal. Only, the little clicker and accompanying dashboard indicator both seem to be blinking faster than usual. Is this faster blinking some unexpected side effect of premium unleaded? Nope.

If your turn signals are blinking faster than normal, it’s usually an indicator that one of your indicator bulbs is burnt out and needs changing. When a turn signal bulb burns out, it means more of the allocated voltage for the turn signal relay is made available, which allows the process to increase in speed.

This means the remaining bulb blinks faster. While this may look kind of cool, better to replace the bulb before you cause a crash and break the rest of your lights. Or worse, your rapidly blinking light starts a parking lot rave.

How To Use Headphones As A Microphone

When you think of a pair of earphones, you probably imagine sound coming out of them. But what most people don’t realize is that earphones can also take sound in, just like a microphone. And I’m not referring to the microphone attachment that many modern pairs come with, either.

This intriguing method works on the principle that earphones and headphones, just like microphones, contain a diaphragm that vibrates in response to a sound signal. In a microphone, this diaphragm usually picks up sound, whereas in earphones, the diaphragm vibrates to produce the sounds we hear.

But as the two principles are so similar, it’s actually possible to use a pair of earphones to pick up and record sound without needing any form of microphone attachment! All you need to do is plug your earphones into the microphone port of your computer, rather than the headphone port they’d usually plug into.

Then, open up your recording software of choice, choose the earphones as the input device, and record away by talking, or singing into the earphone’s speakers! As earphones aren’t really intended to be used in this way, you’ll probably need to boost the signal with some gain and tweak the equalizer frequencies to your personal taste.

This trick was much handier back before most headphones came with a built-in mic, but it remains an intriguing and fun curiosity to test out to this day. With enough tweaking, you may even achieve good enough sound quality to become the first earphone-only recording artist!

Fake Pockets In Women's Jeans

A common frustration for women buying jeans is the fact that, unlike men’s jeans, most female-oriented pairs come with pointless seeming fake pockets. Anyone who’s bought a suit may also have encountered a similarly baffling variety of pockets that don’t open. So, what’s the deal?

For starters, those fake pockets might not actually be as fake as they seem. Often, garment-makers will sew the pockets shut to keep them from being damaged while in transport or on display. Another reason pockets are sewn closed, and sometimes removed entirely save for the exterior, is to ensure a tidier appearance for displayed items.

Without pockets hanging open, garments look smoother and more form-fitting. Which is great for stores, but not so great for customers who want pockets to store their items! To find out if your fake-looking pocket is secretly legit, there are a few things to check.

Firstly, if the garment has no internal lining, you should be able to turn it inside out and check for a pocket lining inside. If the garment has an internal lining, you may need to feel around for any signs of a less-obvious pocket hiding away in there.

Alternatively, you can check to see if the stitching sealing the pocket has any gaps. The threads are often left intentionally loose over sealed pockets, to make them easy to pull or cut open.

But if you don’t see any of these signs, don’t attempt to open the pocket. It’s probably fake, and ripping it open will only leave you with a hole in your already-second-rate, pocketless item of clothing. Frankly, who needs fake pockets?

Screwdriver Handles Designed for Wrenches

Anyone who’s ever assembled an ever-so-slightly-faulty piece of flatpack furniture can vouch for the frustration of a screw that won’t quite budge into its intended hole. While it’s always important to be careful not to wear the screw’s head down by over-turning, sometimes you just need a bit of extra torque.

Unbeknownst to most people, though, to make things easier on your wrists, the shape of many screwdrivers can be used to your advantage. Some screwdrivers have a hexagonally shaped handle, which makes it easy to slip a wrench over them for extra leverage.

Other screwdrivers have hexagonal additions to the molding of the main metal shank, serving the same purpose with a little extra strength. So, quit screwing around and grab your wrench next time you’re in a twist.

Juice Box Flaps Hack

When you look at those little flaps on the sides of juice cartons, you’d be perfectly justified in assuming they’re just a by-product of the carton’s folded shape. And while that’s partially true, most people fail to realize that there’s actually a hidden function to those triangular flaps.

Turns out, when they’re opened outward, they make for some nifty carrying handles. As silly as that sounds initially, the method works surprisingly well.

By securely lifting a Juicebox by the flaps, you avoid exerting pressure on the sides, meaning your chances of accidentally squeezing out a spillage are reduced. Plus, by occupying both hands, it keeps kids’ fingers busy, so they can’t go sticking them somewhere dangerous! And of course, the same goes for any less intelligent adults you might need to deal with.

Tricks For Opening A Beer Without A Bottle Opener

Have you ever been caught short at the crucial moment when beer pong is about to begin, only to realize there are no bottle openers? All too often, partygoers have resorted to that cringe-inducing method of using someone’s teeth; but no more!

It turns out that a lot of people don’t realize that they may already have a bottle opener available that they never thought to check. Next time you need to pop a cap, check your can opener. Many modern models come with a bottle opener subtly built into the handle that’s easy to miss if you’re not paying attention but functions perfectly well.

But if you find yourself missing both a bottle opener and a can opener, you still don’t need to resort to that awful, tooth-shattering method mentioned earlier! Instead, a lighter can be used to open bottles, simply by creating a leverage point between your index finger, the lighter, and the bottlecap.

While the technique can be a little tricky to master and requires a fairly good grip, it’s an absolute game-changer once you get the knack. Plus, assuming you don’t break the lighter, you might even look cool doing it.

Converse Holes

If you’ve ever owned a pair of Converse sneakers, you may have found yourself wondering what the purpose of those holes near the sole are. Common sense leads most people to the conclusion that they’re there to help with ventilation, keeping the shoe fresher for longer, but this is only partially true.

While the holes do indeed serve this function, their other purpose is more stylistic. That’s because, much like all the other metal-ringed holes on the sneakers, the holes near the soles are designed to house laces. This lower placement allows you to rethread the laces down below, which makes the shoe appear narrower when pulled tight.

This is useful for people with naturally narrower feet but also gives a more unique, fitted look to the shoe. Which, of course, will match perfectly with any of those form-fitting fake pockets mentioned earlier that you may have on the rest of your clothing.

Cylinder On Cables

Somewhere in our homes, pretty much everybody has a drawer containing a big, spaghetti-like pile of old, mostly useless electrical cables. Among these wires, accumulated from years of buying new devices, you may find a cable with something that looks like this attached.

If you’re curious, you’ll have spotted these cables over the years and wondered why they require the clunky cylindrical accessory. It turns out, that cylinder is more important than it looks. The cylinders contain ferrite beads, which are blocks of ceramic material that stop unwanted signals from making their way into the cable.

By stopping this interference, a cable, and the device it connects to, is able to work much more efficiently and precisely. These magical cylinders basically make your cables act like regular cables but on a really good day.

The Mason Jar Blender Hack

Do you like smoothies and milkshakes? Do you like drinking out of mason jars like the hipster that deep down you know you are? If you said yes, and even if not, I have a little pro-tip that’s going to blow your mind.

If you own a mason jar and a blender with a screw-on top, you may be merely a handful of fruit away from making and drinking smoothies with style, convenience, and speed. Several major blender brands, including Oster and Tristar, sell regular blenders which also allow you to screw mason jars into the blade mount.

This means you can make single-serve, ready-to-drink blended treats without the need for any extra washing up! Sure, you could buy a Nutri Bullet for a similar experience, but, as any mediocre cocktail bar owner will tell you, there’s nothing quite like the charm of a Mason Jar.

One word of warning, though: try to avoid putting your blender on max setting while doing this. Mason jars aren’t designed to withstand the force of Thor’s hammer, so unless you like your smoothie's broken-glass flavor, blend on a low setting.

Inverted Circles On Milk Jugs

The humble milk carton is something most of us feel pretty familiar with. It essentially holds milk, but certain plastic cartons come with an unusual addition in the form of a circular indentation near the base, which serves several ingenious functions.

Firstly, the indentation will pop outwards if there’s a build-up of gas inside the bottle, alerting you to spoiled milk. It can also pop outwards if you freeze the milk, allowing it to expand without bursting the bottle. On top of that, if the milk is dropped, the indentation will pop out, absorbing some of the impact and pressure, and reducing the risk of the bottle bursting open.

What’s more, the indentation structurally stiffens the jug, allowing its walls to be thinner, meaning less plastic needs to be used in production! But plastic-saving measures aside, those circular indentations are mainly a precaution to minimize the chances that you’ll ever have to cry over spilled milk.

Salt And Pepper Shaker Trick

When it comes to everyday items, it doesn’t get much more mundane than salt and pepper shakers. With something so overwhelmingly common, it’s easy to assume you know every possible feature there is to these simple glass containers.

But did you know there’s a smoother, more consistent way to use the shakers than the shaking motion that gives them their name? It’s true and it all comes down to the ridges you see along the bottom of many shakers.

As demonstrated by Twitter user CreepyKellie’s mom, when rubbed together, the ribbed bottoms of the two shakers vibrate the glass, making the contents flow out smoothly.

Interestingly, this feature may actually be more of a happy accident than an intended usage, as the ridges’ primary purpose is thought to be improving table grip and stability. But either way, it’s still a game-changer for anyone who wants seasoning in a hurry!

I hope you find these hidden purposes useful. You might also want to read our entire secrets hidden in everyday things series. Thanks for reading!