Winter is coming and with it brings cold, dry air. If your winter doesn’t consist of this, go home, I’m jealous, and that’s not fair. For the rest of us lucky ones, flurries and cold air brings on cracked skin, chapped lips, frizzy hairs, nosebleeds, and worst of all: high heating bills. Ick. We’re just a mess, aren’t we?
To help with the madness, adding humidity into your home will help keep your place warmer, which in return can cut down on the costs, and help a brother or sister out by not looking like a Neanderthal living in a cave. The best part is, you can add moisture without the use of a humidifier.
How awesome is that?
Look at how primal we still are—no, you cannot take away my electricity.
The four following tips are from weblog Apartment Therapy; Regina Yunghans tells you how it’s done. I appreciate her tips; they’re definitely old school and practical, and that’s what I love most about them. You can do this stuff in your sleep…but, you of course need to be awake to do said things.
1) Skip the Dryer
Use your damp laundry to your advantage. Set up a drying rack and hang your clothes in your bedroom or the bathroom. The water will evaporate from your laundry, adding more moisture in the air. Another bonus is you don’t have to waste more energy on your dryer when the dry air will do the work for you. Oh, and a triple bonus? No shrunken clothes, and your place will smell of clean laundry and rainbows.
2) Decorate with Bowls
With bowls of water that is. Randomly place bowls of water around your home to help with adding humidity in your home. Your cats or dogs will think it’s just for them, defeating the whole purpose…I haven’t had this experience or anything.
I’ll go ahead and place this tip here (when really it could have been its own). Go ahead and grab up a bunch of potted plants, and set them around your place. Hello. That’s nature’s natural humidifier.
3) Let Hot Water Cool
If you’re a bath taker, don’t drain your hot water. Allow the water to cool, and then drain it so it can be evaporated in the air. As Apartment Therapy notes, make sure not to do this if you have small kids unattended…
You can also apply this technique to your sinks as well. After you hand wash your dishes and you have a full sink of hot water, allow it to cool and evaporate as much as it can, and then drain.
4) Use the Stovetop
Now this is the perfect excuse to make pasta all winter. Shhh…I said nothing. Whether you’re making soups, boiling water for *ahem* pasta, or cooking comfort food in general, your stovetop is where it’s at. Apparently, your hot oven will dry out the air a ton more which makes perfect sense. Opting for your stovetop helps with the evaporation of nose-saving moisture in the house.
Read MorePhoto by: Rich Tatum | Flickr
