Uses for Tea Bags and Leaves: 35+ Clever Ideas

Tea, an ancient beverage celebrated worldwide for its calming and restorative properties, offers far more than just a perfect brew. Tea bags and residual tea leaves can be repurposed in surprising ways, impacting several aspects of our everyday lives, including health, beauty, cleaning, and other household uses. Let’s embark on an exploration of these creative uses for tea bags and leaves.

Uses for Tea Bags: Health and Beauty

• Make your own mouth rinse with mint tea and salt. This solution can be used to help treat toothaches and other mouth pain as well as freshen breath.
• The same mixture can also treat painful and bleeding gums.
• Tea is a natural hair conditioner. Rinse your dry hair in unsweetened brewed tea. Let that dry, and then rinse your hair with water.
• Bathing in green tea can help your skin.
• Chamomile tea can be a good facial steamer.
• Green tea is a natural antioxidant and can help get rid of wrinkles and age spots.
• Use tea to make your own homemade soap bars.
• Brewed green tea and sugar can make a great facial scrub. Here are other ideas for making your own homemade sugar scrubs.
• Warm and wet tea bags can be placed on your closed eyes to reduce puffiness around tired eyes.
• The same technique can also help relieve pink eye.
• Soothe a sunburn by soaking in a bath of tea bags.
• Wet tea bags can also soothe razor burn as well as injection sites.
• Hot tea bags may be able to draw out the infection from blisters.
• Wash your face with green tea to help reduce acne.
• Dry our poisoned ivy by applying brewed black tea to the area with a cotton ball. Let it air dry, and then repeat.
• Strong black tea makes a good foot odor reducer. Soak your feet for 20 minutes every day.

Uses for Tea Bags: Cleaning

• Warm black tea can be used to clean and shine your hardwood floors. Dip a mop or clean rag into the black tea, wring it out until it’s damp. Then wipe the floor. Let it air dry.
• The same technique also makes a good furniture polish.
• Clean dark leather shoes with a rag dipped in brewed black tea
• Drink green tea? After you drink it, wait until the leaves dry out. Sprinkle them onto your carpet and leave them for a few minutes. Vacuum them up to leave your carpet refreshed. This can also work for musty antique rugs.
• A spray bottle filled with brewed tea is great for getting rid of greasy fingerprints on glass and mirrors.
• Rinse your hands in brewed tea after cooking with fish or garlic to get rid of the smell.
• Instead of baking soda, place some used tea bags in your fridge to absorb the odors.
• Used dry green leaves can be mixed into a litter box to help with the smell.
• A good strong smelling tea bag under the seats in your car make a nice natural car air freshener (not used).
• Even after tea bags lose through flavor, they can retain their scent. So dry them out and make sachet bags with tea leaves, as well as dried herbs and flowers.
• Sprinkle wet tea leaves on the ashes in your fireplace to reduce blowing dust while scooping them out.

Uses for Tea Bags: Other Household

• Marinate tough meat in black tea as a tenderizer.
• Burnt dried food stuck on a pan? Soak it overnight in used tea bags and water.
• Wipe down cast iron pots and pans with a used brewed tea bag to prevent rust.
• Adding strong tea to your compost bin can help speed up the process because it helps friendly bacteria to grow.
• Mix used tea leaves with mulch and spread it around rose bushes to act as a fertilizer.
• Every week or so, water your house plants with brewed tea at room temperature. This will add nutrients to the soil.
• “Tea-Dipped” fabrics are popular to create a beige antiqued look. Black tea is the best for soaking and dyeing.

Did you know you can even make Green Tea Ice Cream?