It's winter, and it's cold. This means I'm eating oatmeal. Lots and lots of oatmeal, every single morning. (Steel cut with maple syrup — you?) So while I enjoy my morning mush I've been wondering, as long as this wonderful stuff is in my pantry, is there anything else I could do with it? Of course there is! And some of these creative uses for oatmeal are especially helpful in the winter winter.
1. Play clay: As long as your baby is squishing her fingers through her oatmeal anyway, you might as well go all the way. Here's how to make oatmeal play clay with oats, flour, water, and maybe some food coloring.
2. Industrial-strength hand cleaner: Hands greasy from fixing the car? Forget that chemical goop. You can wash up the natural way using a cleaner made from oatmeal and milk.
3. Odor eater: Apparently baking soda does not absorb odors in your refrigerator. But oatmeal might. Just place an open container of uncooked oats and see if it works.
4. Poison ivy and chicken pox treatment: Oatmeal soothes skin that's dry and itchy, whether from plants, pox, or the elements. Try making an oatmeal bath. By the way, you can treat irritated pet skin with oatmeal, too. Smooth oatmeal past on affected ares.
5. Skin exfoliator: Banish dead, scaly skin with an oatmeal face scrub — there's a few different recipes. Or make oatmeal soap.
6. Acne treatment: This will work best for the oily skin kind of acne, not so much for cystic, hormonal acne. Make an oatmeal paste with ground oats, colloidal oats and water and apply to affected areas.
Have you ever used oats for something other than oatmeal?
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