Mayonnaise often goes on sale and I get a little carried away. Sometimes I wonder "What do we do with all this MAYO?!"

I went sleuthing the Internet for alternate uses to slathering it on bread, and I found some very creative ideas. Seems this is a commodity well worth stockpiling. Take a look at what you can do with mayonnaise:

1) Make homemade salad dressing! If you didn't stock up on Salad Dressing when it was on sale, you can make your own! Thousand Island, Russian Creamy, Green Goddess, Creamy Italian, and Ranch dressing all can be built around mayonnaise. Who knew?

2) Make Tartar or fry sauce! Homemade tartar sauce with grilled, broiled, or pan-seared fish is extra delicious. And mixed with barbeque sauce or ketchup, it makes a first-rate French fry sauce.

3) Locks in moisture when baking chicken. Just coat your chicken pieces well with mayonnaise, dip them in herbed crumbs and bake. This makes the juciest chicken breasts!

4) Amp-up your mashed potatoes. We all know to add sour cream, but adding mayonnaise instead also creates a moist mashed spud dish, and adds a little extra flavor as well.

5) Bake pastries with it - mayonnaise in chocolate cake is divine.

6) Use it as a conditioner for your hair! After shampooing, massage 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of mayo into your hair. Let it sit for about 10-15 minutes, shampoo again (use much less than the first time) and rise with apple cider vinegar (which is great for your hair and also gets rid of the mayo smell) and water.

7) Speaking of hair, it does a good job getting gum out of the hair of your little children or grandchildren.

8) Still speaking of hair (and the head), many doctors recommend treating head lice infestation with mayonnaise. Certain strains of head lice have become very resistant to the traditional chemical treatments, but leaving mayonnaise in the hair overnight with a shower cap will cause the lice to suffocate and die. Any remaining nits can be combed out with a fine tooth comb. The process should be repeated seven days later.

9) Use it to moisturize your face! Mayonnaise actually helps to remove dead skin cells. Apply a small amount to face (or other dry parts of your body) and leave on for about 15 minutes. Then use a warm wet rag to wipe it off and the dead skin cells will come off too! You can use Apple Cider Vinegar as a toner after the mayo... again, good for your skin and helps to get rid of the mayo smell.

10) Relieve sunburn pain! Take some cold mayo out of the fridge and rub it on your sunburn for instant cooling relief. The vinegar in the mayo also helps to relieve the pain and the oil provides a bit of moisturizing.

11) Clean your car! Really?? You know those caked on tar patches on the bottom of your car? Apply some mayo to them, let it sit a few minutes and then wipe it off! Reapply if necessary.

12) Use instead of Goo-Gone! Goo-Gone (the stuff that gets the sticky glue residue off containers) is pretty expensive, but mayonnaise will do the trick just as well. If you take the label off of a container and the sticky glue part won't come up, just rub it with some mayonnaise and a cloth and it will disappear! Make sure to use a different part of the cloth each time you wipe or you will put the sticky stuff back on the container.

13) And still speaking of glue residue: Remove bumper stickers and their residue with mayonnaise. A layer applied to the remnants of a bumper sticker will soften the paper and dissolve the glue after several minutes.

14) Keep your hands soft and fingernails strong! Soak the tips of your fingers in mayonnaise every night for 10-15 minutes to soften the tips of your fingers (where the skin gets dry and eventually leads to hangnails) and to strengthen your fingernails.

15) It can also be used to lubricate stubborn rings. If a ring becomes too tight to remove, apply a generous amount of mayo to the entire finger, especially under the ring itself. Mayonnaise is very slippery, so it should reduce the friction well enough to allow removal of the ring.

16) Clean piano keys. Readers Digest suggested this. If the keys to your piano are starting to yellow, just tickle the ivories with a little mayonnaise applied with a soft cloth. Wait a few minutes, wipe with a damp cloth, and buff. The piano keys will look like new.

Pretty much the only thing you can't do with mayonnaise is freeze it.

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Sources:
www.hellmans.com
www.baskersfunfoods.blogspot.com
www.lifesambrosia.com
www.tasteofhome.com
www.justapinch.com
www.acozykitchen.com
www.lifemartini.com
www.girlshh.com
www.grandmas-wisdom.com
www.ehow.com
www.blondeappetit.blogspot.com
www.detailedimage.com
www.wikihow.com
www.popscreen.com
www.pinterest.com
www.mydogdinner.blogspot.com
www.raineathome.blogspot.com