You may be wondering what a drawer full of shower caps has to do with gardening. Well… nothing, actually.
But in my kitchen, the lowly shower cap (procured from many a hotel stay) ranks right up there with wooden spoons and measuring cups as one of my most-used tools.
I substitute my shower cap for plastic wrap, as it’s much more user-friendly (no more wrangling impossible sticky wrap from the box!) and a single cap can be saved and reused countless times. I’ve wrapped leftovers in rectangular roasting dishes and stretched the shower cap over colanders to keep my garden harvests fresh. I’ve even used it to cover the smoke detector when I’m cooking up a Cajun blackened hot mess (umm, not that I’ve ever burned anything…).
Who would’ve thought? The cheap, flimsy, ugly shower cap, elevated to kitchen essential for those in the know.
4 Comments
Dana Johnson
June 14, 2017 at 1:10 pmThat is genius! I never would have thought of this.
Meemsnyc
February 3, 2012 at 7:09 pmhahahaha, what a fantastic idea!
EcoGrrl
February 3, 2012 at 6:57 pm1st – great site. 2nd – While I appreciate innovative product use (especially the smoke detector), unless you are using these as an actual shower cap then reusing them for all these purposes, I’m not sure if I agree that collecting these from hotels is any different from just buying plastic wrap. You’re choosing to bring these home instead of leaving them in the hotel room for the next person, which means the hotel is continuing to buy more plastic shower caps. So it’s essentially the same as free saran wrap, not actual repurposing something that would have gone in the dump otherwise. Also, these things have PVC in them so perhaps folks, instead of collecting these from hotels, consider using non-plastic. Not trying to be debbie downer but hoping this will be considered instead of promoting further plastic use…
Linda Ly
February 3, 2012 at 7:53 pmThanks EcoGrrl!
I understand what you’re saying. But, a free shower cap is not the same thing as free saran wrap. Shower caps can be reused over and over again, to the point where I have not bought a box of saran wrap in several years. If used as an actual shower cap, I don’t think one would last nearly as long.
I do realize that the hotel has to replace the shower cap I bring home, but I only consider this wasteful if I ended up never using the cap at all. However, it comes in incredibly handy for the kitchen, picnics, potlucks, camping trips, and many more places. I find half-used plastic shampoo bottles (which many people don’t bring home from the hotel at all) to be a bigger problem.
I don’t argue that people should curb plastic use, but efforts should be directed more toward single-use plastic, rather than reusable plastic.