8 Uses for Olive Oil (That Have Nothing to do with Food)

Olive oil is something that you almost certainly have in your kitchen cupboard. Most of us use it to fry up the foods that we love or to top off salads. However, cooking isn't the only thing that olive oil can be used for. In fact, it can be used for a whole variety of things that you've probably never even thought of.

Here are just eight great uses for olive oil that don't have anything to do with cooking:

1. Cure dry hair. Or oily hair for that matter. You can balance out the natural oils produced by your hair by using cooking oils like vegetable oil to regulate your oil secretion. Simply rub a dab of olive oil on your scalp before bed. Dry hair will brighten up and oily hair will start to calm down.

2. Polish your furniture. Why pay a fortune for fancy furniture polisher when the olive oil that you've got in your kitchen will do the trick? Use it on all different types of wood to maintain that look you paid for.

3. Medicinal purposes. There are many things that can be cured with olive oil. Two common ones are earaches and lice. For earaches, pour the olive oil into your air, add a cotton ball and relax while it works its magic. For lice, clean out the critters with a comb first and then add olive oil to the scalp to solve the rest of the problem.

4. Beautify your skin. You can use olive oil as a skin lotion. You can use it to assist you in shaving without nicking yourself. Or you can add some to your bath to get a silky smooth feeling from your cleaning. In all these ways, olive oil improves the appearance and feel of your skin.

5. Add shine to your kitchen. You can use olive oil to clean stainless steel so any appliances or utensils that you have which are made of this material can be easily brightened up with a little help from your olive oil.

6. Stop that squeaking. Anything that you hear squeaking probably just needs a little oil. Before making a mess with the WD-40, consider seeing if some olive oil will solve the problem.

7. Eliminate wax from your nice candle-holders. You didn't pay all that money to have wax melt on to them. Coat them with a little bit of olive oil before you burn your candles and you should have no problem peeling that wax away.

8. Give new life to old things. Certain items just need some shine to get them looking like they should - or working like they should. For example, you can improve the leather on shoes and baseball mitts by rubbing olive oil into them.

Olive oil is great in the kitchen. It can be used on salads, as bread dip or to fry up meats and vegetables. However, olive oil gets its best use when it's taken out of the kitchen and turned into a useful tool around the home. Anything that you can think of which requires oil, moisturizer or some shine might benefit from a dab of olive oil.