You Should Rub Stainless Steel After Cutting Garlic. Here's Why

There's no denying that garlic is an absolutely essential ingredient in just about everyone's kitchen. Simply adding a minced clove or two (or, let's be honest, six) to a dish can add a huge burst of flavor, and as with many seasoning ingredients, it's so much better to use fresh garlic than powdered or dried versions. There's just one stumbling block for many home chefs — the fact that, after mincing those few cloves, you get that garlic smell on your hands and just can't get rid of it. While it's delectable in many dishes, you likely don't want to be smelling it hours afterwards when you're trying to relax for the evening.

Luckily, the solution to eliminating that odor from your fingertips couldn't be simpler — all you need to do is rub some stainless steel (via Nigella). If you're one of the many people that has a stainless steel sink, you can simply rub the sink or faucet with your garlic-scented hands for a few seconds and the smell will be magically eliminated. That one simple trick should ensure that you never again have to wrinkle your nose at the garlic aroma emanating from your hands, hours after you last used the ingredient in the kitchen.

The logic behind this particular hack is all about the science. You see, garlic contains sulfur molecules, which get transferred to your skin, leaving you with an unpleasant aroma lingering on any body part that made contact with those minced cloves of garlic (via HuffPost). Washing your hands helps to eliminate most of the food aromas you might deal with in the kitchen, but in the case of garlic, the water actually turns those sulfur molecules into sulfuric acid. That's right — washing your hands to get rid of the garlic smell can actually make the aroma even worse, which is why an alternative is needed.

When you touch your garlic-scented hands to stainless steel, such as the bottom of a stainless steel sink, those sulfur molecules actually transfer to the steel by binding with the molecules present in that particular shiny metallic material. Simple and effective! For any fans of seafood or onion lovers struggling with unpleasant aromas, know that this can actually be a great hack for eliminating those particular smells from your hands as well.