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• Method 1 of 2: Cleaning your hands

Have you ever come home to find that your house still smelled like onions from the food from the day before? Or do you still smell the onion scent on your hands for hours, maybe even days, despite having washed them? Preparing onions for your dishes can leave a pungent and persistent odor on your hands and in your home that some people find unpleasant. There are a few methods you can follow to get rid of this odor.

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Method 1 of 2: Cleaning your hands

1. Rub your hands against stainless steel. This is one of the most commonly used home remedies to get rid of the unpleasant onion smell on your hands. After you prepare the onions, take a stainless steel spoon. Run your hands under warm water and rub your hands and fingers with the curved part of the spoon. The sulfur in the steel helps to remove the odor from your skin.
   • You can use any object that is stainless steel. Knives and other utensils are often made of this. You can also rub your hands against your sink or faucet as these are often made of stainless steel as well.
   • They also make soap-form stainless steel that you can buy to keep in your kitchen.
2. Wash your hands with coffee grounds. Fill your hands with a generous amount of used coffee grounds. Wet your hands a little. Wash your hands with the coffee grounds as you would with soap. Rinse and dry your hands. Not only can this help reduce the smell of onions, but your hands will smell wonderfully like coffee afterward.
   • Make sure to do this method with old coffee grounds. Fresh coffee grounds will not have the desired effect.
3. Apply dry mustard to your hands. Sprinkle dry mustard in the palm of your hand. Wet the area and mix water with the mustard to make a paste. Rub it on your hands. Rinse and dry your hands. The components in the mustard can help remove odor from your hands.
   • Make sure you use the right kind of mustard. Do not use a dried lump of mustard from a jar. The type of mustard you want is dry mustard. It is a yellow powder that is used in many recipes. It can be found at supermarkets.
4. Let baking soda boil slowly. Just as it eliminates odors on your hands, you can also use baking soda to reduce odors in the air. In a slow cooker, put a few tablespoons of baking soda in a generous amount of water. Put the slow cooker on low heat and leave the top off. The heated baking soda will help clear odors from the air.
   • Rather than just eliminating odors, you can turn this method into an air freshener. To the baking soda, add a few drops of vanilla, a few teaspoons of your favorite spices such as cinnamon or cloves, some essential oils, or a few lemon wedges. The baking soda will still mask the smell, and the extra ingredients will replace the onion's scent with a delicious new scent.
5. Bake dessert. A good way to get rid of the odors left by onions is to fry something to replace the smell. Think of cookies or a cake. Anything that has a naturally pleasant aroma will help obscure the smell of the onions and exchange it for the smell of baked goods. The added bonus is that you have a nice dessert when you are done.
6. Burn candles. Burning candles can make a room smell wonderful, but you can also use them to reduce the odors left over from cooking. Burn a candle in your kitchen to help reduce the odors left behind when cutting and cooking onions. Try citrus or vanilla scented candles. The extracts used to make these scents will help reduce the odors that have lingered in the air in your kitchen and around your home.