Life can anytime throw you in a situation when you need an “ice pack” to soothe an injury or sprain. Perhaps someone in your house needs it for recovering from an injury or you want it to reduce inflammation or soothe a burn.

In most of these situations, you need to know how to make your ice pack at home. We understand that not everyone has a Gel Ice Pack Machine at home. But with the following five simple ideas you can easily have your ice packs at home, using common household items.

Here’s how to make your homemade ice pack:

Corn Syrup

Corn syrup is a good ingredient to Make Gel Ice Packs. It is flexible and squishy and won’t change its colour or texture in a freezer. It doesn’t even include any harmful content that may worsen your injury if the pack accidentally leaks or punctures. You can pour corn syrup in a ziploc bag, seal it and put it into a freezer for a few hours. It is one of the easiest ways to make an ice pack at home. This ice pack is great for alleviating pains caused by injuries and can even be moulded around sore knees, ankles, wrists or other areas.

Rubbing Alcohol

Another easy way to make a homemade ice pack is by adding alcohol into water and freezing it. For making this ice pack, you need a quart-size ziploc packet and have to combine ½ cup of rubbing alcohol with 1½ cups of water. Seal the ziploc bag and put it in a freezer for a few hours or overnight.

Dish Soap

A homemade ice pack can also be made using dish soap. Depending on how long it’s been kept in the freezer, it can become more gel-like, firmer or flexible. If you keep it in the freezer for two hours, it will be flexible and squishy for relieving pain from curved joints. If the dish soap ice pack is kept for long hours in a freezer, it will become more firm and icy for flat body areas. Either way, this is a simple way of making an ice pack in any sized ziploc bag by simply pouring dish soap water.

Salt

Salt is another amazing ingredient that keeps water from freezing completely. Hence, it’s ideal for making an ice pack. For quite easy and cheap DIY ice pack, you simply need to add table salt to water in a quart-size or sandwich size ziploc bag. It’s best to add 2 tablespoons of salt into 2 cups of water and put this mixture into a ziploc. Seal it and put in the freezer for a few hours or overnight.

Sponge

Finally, you may even use a sponge for making your ice pack. Simply get a sponge wet with water and put it in a freezer. It is a good method to make an ice pack, as it’s only water without any harmful substances. The sponge becomes firm and hard without any flexibility when taken out from the freezer. But it starts becoming flexible and soft but not drippy, as it warms up. It will be hard and firm with no flexibility when first taken out of the freezer. You may even put it in a plastic bag if you want but this step is not necessary.

Conclusion

With these simple methods, you can easily create your homemade ice packs for small injuries or sprains that happen while doing household work. Which one out of these ideas do you like the most for making your ice pack? Share your views with us.