Leaving the house in the winter months can be challenging enough without having to spend ages defrosting your car - so we decided to see if one of the cheapest hacks out there really does work.
The tedious task of having to defrost your car is the reason many people run late in the morning. Trying to scrape the ice off with a scraper and being tempted to go to extreme measures to pour warm water on it can be annoying. But there's one less extreme, albeit bizarre, hack that has been hailed as a game changer. And it involves using an onion.
To see if it was myth or the real deal, former Mirror reporter Danni Scott decided to give it a go herself last year to see if it really works. On a really cold night, before frost was predicted to hit, Danni rubbed the onion over her car window.
It should be rubbed over windows the night before as the onion is meant to stop the frost forming in the first place. "For this little science experiment, I decided a patch test over the passenger side of the windscreen was the best approach in case I ended up with frozen onion layers blocking my vision.
"As expected, the onion was a bit smelly but the method itself was super quick and easy - even in the dark. The downside of this is remembering to sort it the night before - once you're tucked up in your warm house, going outside isn't an appealing thought but needs must."
One lesson Danni took from this is that you don't need a lot to get the job done. She recommended that "chopping the top off will give you plenty to work with" and was surprised at how far it went.
So, the next morning, she went to see if it had worked. "In the morning, I was surprised to find that my scruffy patch of onion smears had prevented any ice from forming - although the frost overnight was minimal anyway. There was a clear difference between the area of the windscreen that I had onion-ified and the areas that I missed. Had the frost been worse, this definitely would have saved me from tedious scraping," she explained.
The reason it works is that the sugar from the onion creates a barrier on the glass, and in result helps to break down the molecules and prevents the ice from forming. Danni concluded: "I definitely would use this hack again, especially if I had to rush off in the morning. It's best to do this when you've already used onions, so have some scraps to hand. Interestingly, potatoes will also work under the same concept, so anyone who can't bear the thought of an onion smell in their car might want to give that a go instead."
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