Use This Household Item To Safely Pack Leak-Prone Toiletries & Bottles In Your Luggage

The last thing you want to see when opening your suitcase after a long trip is shampoo spilled all over your favorite pair of pants. Or even worse, maybe you bought an expensive bottle of perfume on your vacation, only to return with cracks in the glass and a suitcase that smells like a Bath & Body Works store. Traveling with liquids is a risk and not always avoidable. However, this unsuspecting baby product may serve as the perfect cushion for your spillable suitcase items: diapers.

This is the perfect hack for parents with diapers to spare to keep liquids from spilling in their suitcases. With the absorbent material and fastening tabs, diapers make for a surprisingly efficient protective layer for glass and spillable items. While not the cheapest long-term travel solution, they certainly work in a pinch. For example, imagine you took your kids to Colorado's majestic mountains and impulsively bought them a snow globe to commemorate the trip. Then you realize that if you put it straight in your checked bag, you risk cracking it on a pair of shoes next to it. The thought of washing mysterious snow globe water out of your clothes is enough to make you want to leave the thing behind. But if you happen to have some diapers left in your bag, you now have the perfect solution to snugly protect your child's snowy souvenir.

This genius diaper hack works because all diapers are made with an absorbent polymer called sodium polyacrylate, which is why each diaper can absorb around 400 milliliters of liquid. When the polymers come in contact with liquid, they expand to absorb and trap the fluid, leaving the rest of the diaper dry. This makes diapers perfectly suited to protect your liquid items if they do happen to spill, as you can be sure that they stay in the diaper and not on your clothes.

When packing, simply unwrap the diaper and enclose it around your items most susceptible to spills. The more area you can cover, the better. Luckily, diapers can expand to cover a variety of items; even a bottle of wine can be completely covered by a diaper. Use the built-in tabs to close the diaper to ensure your fragile items remain secure. With this odd but foolproof hack, you can sleep easily on your flight knowing that the contents of your suitcase will stay protected from spills.