How to Get Rid of That Oniony Smell on Your Hands and on Your Breath

Onions make great and tasty additions to recipes.  A hamburger or hot dog loaded with onions is yummy!  Unfortunately, dealing with the onion odor is another story.  How many times have we avoided onions because we didn't want bad breath or didn't want the smell on our hands?

There's a trick to decreasing the smell, and it's as close as your kitchen sink.  Well, more like your kitchen faucet, especially if it's stainless steel. This works best if it's done immediately after working with onions.  It works for fish and garlic, too.  

Once you're finished handling these items, wet your hands rub them hands over the stainless steel of the kitchen faucet.  Voila!  The vast majority of the onion smell should be neutralized. 

It doesn't have to be the faucet.  Anything stainless steel will work such as a saucepan, the blade of a knife (watch out for cuts), and some places even make these blobs of stainless steel that look like a bar of soap to use for this.  

How do you get rid of onion breath?  Same concept, except use a stainless steel spoon. Place it in your mouth with the bowl of the spoon facing down so that your tongue cups into the bowl and the bottom of the spoon fits against the roof of your mouth.  Let it sit there for a bit, remove the spoon, then swish with water and spit.  I recommend brushing your teeth or chewing gum at this time to get any lingering food particles from inside your mouth. 

For both tricks, it may not take away all the oniony smell, especially onion breath, but it should reduce it significantly.  If you still have the odor, you can do it again.  It will at least make you easier to live with!

The cool thing is this works for garlic and fish, too!