Clever Q-Tip Beauty Tips You’ll Want To Try

If you’re like most women, you have a plethora of Q-Tips lying around with no good use for them aside from the typical.  They come in packs of a thousand and they can’t only be for cleaning ears.  Right? Well, we found a bunch of reasons why Q-Tips are kind of amazing.  They’re small and convenient, and if you get creative enough you’ll burn through that pack of a thousand Q-tips in no time.

Check out our list of 25 Q-tip tips.

1. Spray the ends of a few cotton swabs with your favorite perfume, and put them in a plastic sandwich bag before stashing them in your purse to touch up throughout the day.

Carrying around a bulky perfume bottle in your bag all day is impractical. But popping a few perfume-covered cotton swabs in a plastic bag (which will lock in the scents for several hours) is totally doable. That way, when you want to freshen up your fragrance midday, you just whip one out and run the scent-covered end over your pulse points (on the inside your wrists and elbows, the sides of your neck, and behind your ears and knees).

2. Mix baking soda, toothpaste, and hydrogen peroxide together to make a teeth whitening paste, and then apply it with a cotton swab.

Mix a dab of toothpaste, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda together until you get a paste-like texture. Then, use one end of a cotton swab to wipe down each tooth so it’s dry and the other to apply the paste you just made. After one minute has passed, brush the blend off with a toothbrush. Repeat this a few times a week until you’ve reached the desired effect.

3. Outline your lips with translucent powder using a cotton swab to prevent your bold lip color from bleeding outside of your lip line.

No one likes when their lipstick bleeds, so to prevent that, dip the tip of a cotton swab in translucent powder, and sweep it along the perimeter of your mouth. The powder helps create a barrier around your lips, preventing any lip color from bleeding.

4. Touch up your roots in between dye jobs with a cotton swab dipped in eyeshadow.

Need to cover your roots in a pinch? Swipe a cotton swab over an eyeshadow that matches your hair color, and then run it over your roots to camouflage any regrowth.

5. Remove at-home hair dye drip stains with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and a cotton swab.

If you’re dyeing your hair at home and the hair dye drips onto your neck or the side of your face, try an at-home hair dye removal paste made of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Mix the two ingredients together to create a thick paste, dip a cotton swab in the mixture, and rub it in a circular motion on the spot to remove the stain.

6. Clean the lint out of your hair dryer vent with a cotton swab.

To make sure your hair dryer is functioning at full capacity, regularly clean out the lint that is blocking the air flow in the back of the dryer with a cotton swab.

7. Use a cotton swab to buff out the self-tanner in spots that are prone to darken.

When applying a self-tanner, your cuticles, knuckles, knees, ankles, and elbows are likely to soak up more DHA (the ingredient that creates with the amino acids on your skin to make you tan), making you darker in those areas. To prevent this from happening, wipe away excess product before it has a chance to set it using clean cotton swabs and circular motions over those spots.

8. Stash a few cotton swabs in an old pill bottle for when you need them on the go.

Stick a few cotton swabs in an empty pill bottle that is small enough to fit in your purse and the perfect size for traveling.