Listen to Mom
When I was a teenager I got impetigo. My mum read on some message board that you could get rid of it by scrubbing your face using vinegar. I tried to argue against it but she wouldn’t listen and insisted on scrubbing the scabs away with this really rough flannel soaked in vinegar. THE BURNING WAS LIKE NOTHING I HAVE EXPERIENCED. Imagine somebody rubbing VINEGAR into an open wound?!?! I went to the doctors the next day and she proudly told them that she had tried ‘the vinegar thing’ and they looked at her with a look of horror and were like “yea…that’s not something we would advise…”
Not So Easy Breezy
I once saw a beauty hack that said you should hold your eyelash curler under the blow dryer for 10 seconds so your lashes curl more. I burned my eyelashes off. That was 7 years ago and I swear they’ve only just recently grown back completely.
The Gall!
Not so much a “life hack” as a really shitty home remedy, but about 15 years ago, I had gallstones really bad. I found some home remedy that said drinking a whole cup of olive oil straight up would grease them enough to make them pass right through with a little pop. I tried it, wishing for anything to ease the pain. 30 seconds later I puked to the point of dry-heaving. Now I had gallstone pain and sore ribs, abs, and lower back. And my mouth tasted like I’d just puked a bucket of piss. I just went and laid down and cried. Edit: The sad irony is, it wasn’t even gallstones that were causing the pain after all that ordeal. I later found out that it was an ulcer. I had that H. Pylori shit in my stomach really bad and was eventually hospitalized when the wall of my stomach ripped right open getting out of bed one day. On the plus side, the trip to the hospital revealed the true cause of the pain, and within a day or so it was all fixed up.