These Tiny Pads Have One Million Uses

Dec 31

This past summer I tried two different biologics, and because of that I 1) Met my insurance deductible and didn’t have to pay for anything medical for half the year, and 2) Discovered what is now one of my essential products, that is cheap, simple, and a must-have for oh, every single person. Turns out I was allergic to both biologics, but I did discover the beauty and wonder of alcohol wipes.

Biologics are drugs that you have to inject yourself with, at home, and because of that, you need to have certain medical supplies at the ready. Just regular shot stuff, like bandages to apply injection and alcohol wipes to sterilize your injection site. Alcohol wipes are incredibly cheap (here’s 400 for $6) (I got this pack of 200 for $3), so you can only get them in the hundreds, and I only did 8 injections before it was clear this was not the path for me (i.e. I was covered in hives). I was left with a box of approximately 192 alcohol wipes. So I started using them for other stuff.

I always have a bottle of isopropyl alcohol in my cupboard, along with cotton balls, for when you need to sterilize something or clean something or what have you, but once i started using the alcohol wipes, I realized this was infinitely easier than dragging out that bulky bottle, and overloading a cotton ball with alcohol because I can’t gauge how quickly it will pour from the bottle. Just grab a wipe, swipey-swipe, and YOU’RE DONE!

Think this incredibly cheap and convenient product isn’t for you? THINK AGAIN. Here’s an abbreviated list of tasks I use alcohol wipes for:

Cleaning tweezers, cuticle nippers, and other beauty tools (Did you know you need to clean these things? You need to clean these.)
Cleaning my retainer case (Real talk: I would probably not clean my retainer case if it wasn’t as easy as giving it a quick wipe down with an alcohol pad. And it NEEDS IT, woo boy.)
Evicting the 10.000 various bacterium that live on my phone screen
I don’t know how you’re supposed to clean a food thermometer, but I clean mine with an alcohol wipe.
Making sure there is nothing getting in the way of my zit patches or bandaids staying where they’ve been applied. (You ever realize you cut your ankle shaving AFTER you applied lotion? You can’t stick a band-aid on freshly moisturized skin!)
When I decided my bathroom bottle labeling needed to be taken to the next level, I used an alcohol wipe to get all that “indelible” marker off AND make sure the new labels would stick perfectly.

These things are so inexpensive and take up so little space, why NOT get a box and see how you’ll use them. I’m not injecting myself with drugs anymore, but I’m probably going to always have a box of alcohol prep pads in my arsenal. They’ve proven themselves indispensable.