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The Genius Kitchen Sponge Hack We Wish We'd Known About Sooner
The Genius Kitchen Sponge Hack We Wish We'd Known About Sooner originally appeared on Parade.
As a mom of four young kids, I'm always out of ice packs. They go off in lunch boxes and just don't come back, or my house somehow swallows them after they were used to treat a minor injury. As the ice packs mysteriously disappear (maybe they're with all of the lost socks?), I'm left regularly buying new ones and feeling seriously grumpy about it.
And that's why I was very excited when I stumbled across a DIY ice pack hack on social media. (It's the little things, folks!) All you need is a kitchen sponge, some water and a zip-top bag. I was instantly sold—and my monthly Amazon bill is about to go down as a result. Here's what you need to know to try this trick at your house.
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What Is the Kitchen Sponge Ice Pack Trick?
TikTok is packed with these sponge ice packs. Some people (like @ cut them into small pieces, get them wet and freeze them, like the ones here.
Others simply take a regular full-size kitchen sponge, get it wet, freeze it and use it the next day. Like this version shared by the @moms account.
What Makes the Kitchen Sponge Hack So Great?
There are so many reasons to love the kitchen sponge hack. For starters, it's cheap. Ice packs can run you about $9 for a set, while a set of kitchen sponges costs a fraction of that.
Ice packs also tend to have unspecified ingredients that inevitably leak out at some point, whether from rough use or time. That makes me nervous when they're used next to food, skin and faces. But a baggie-covered sponge is a pretty harmless product.
A big complaint with my kids is that ice packs are too cold or too hard, but a sponge is soft—even when it's frozen and thanks to its air pockets, it's not as cold as a standard ice pack. As it thaws, the sponge-pack also conforms to the shape of what it's touching, making it more comfortable for my kiddos.
Finally, because my house (and kids) are a black hole for ice packs, I'm less annoyed when one of these gets lost because it ultimately ends up costing me less.
Related:
How to Turn Your Kitchen Sponges Into Ice Packs
The kitchen sponge hack is pretty easy to pull off. Just take a sponge, wet it well and toss it in the freezer. When you need an ice pack for a lunchbox or an injury, pull it out, put it in a zip-top bag and use it. They're also super easy to reuse: Just wet them and put them back in the freezer.
If you prefer to use smaller pieces, cut up your sponge with scissors, wet the pieces, and freeze them in a baggie. You can either redistribute those pieces in another baggie when you're ready to use them, or pull out the whole thing.
Up Next: The Genius Kitchen Sponge Hack We Wish We'd Known About Sooner first appeared on Parade on Aug 17, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 17, 2025, where it first appeared.
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