This Boring Household Item Is Hiding A Money-Saving Beauty Hack

Of all the household items that also lead not-so-secret double lives as beauty products (diluted with water, the apple cider vinegar you put on your salads makes a pretty legit facial toner) and tools (an old toothbrush is all you ever need to tame your brows in a pinch), laundry detergent is not known for being one of them. It is straightforward in its intentions: It cleans your dirty clothes, and that's that.

But perhaps we underestimated laundry detergent when we never considered using it for anything other than to launder. If only we had been a little more open-minded, and hadn't spent so much time standing in the aisle at the grocery store trying to work out the math of how much money we'd actually save in the long run by buying the economy size instead of just grabbing the cheapest one, we might have been able to see what one eagle-eyed Redditor beat us to.

User alixehd took to the Makeup Addiction forum to brag about their latest "2-in-1" purchase of the week, which turned out to not be makeup at all but the cap from a bottle of Tide laundry detergent. Technically designed for the purpose of helping to break up fabric stains before you toss your clothes in the washing machine, the cap's wavy, textured bristles look just like the ones you'd find on a silicone makeup brush-cleaning mat.

"If anyone is like me (not willing to shell out for an overpriced soft plastic item and unmotivated to DIY), this is a cool purchase as everybody should eventually purchase laundry soap," alixehd wrote in the thread. "I cleaned my brushes by softly rubbing them on the textured surface and it worked like a dream."

So next time you find yourself in that all too familiar aisle struggling to make the right detergent-related decision to get the most bang for your buck, don't forget to look for the textured cap. After all, the better you take care of your makeup brushes, the longer they'll last — you might as well consider your choice in laundry detergent part of the investment.