Medicine Bottles Have a Secret Feature That People Are Just Discovering (It’s Totally Brilliant!)
Opening up tight jars and bottles is never fun, whether or not you have limited grip strength, but I’ve found that the contents of my medicine cabinet — specifically medicines and vitamins — are some of the worst offenders. Because I live in a household without any kids, the bulky childproof lids end up being an annoying inconvenience instead of a useful safety feature — and I usually end up spilling the contents of the bottle as I try to get them open. So I did a double-take when I finally discovered a surprisingly secret hack for getting rid of child-proof lids once and for all — and I’m never going back.
Your Medicine Bottles Have a Secret Feature
In an Instagram Reel shared by self-professed life hacker Sidney Raz, the creator shared the trick to exposing the “grown-up cap” hiding under the childproof cap in your over-the-counter medicine bottle. It turns out that your Advil and Aspirin bottles come with a regular cap that you can access with a simple trick. Admitting that he didn’t find out about this little-known hack until his 30s, Raz shared a video of him pushing up on the child-resistant lid with his thumbs and it easily popping off — exposing a regular screw-off lid underneath.
Why This Feature Is So Brilliant
His shocked expression was mirrored by many viewers who chimed in on the child safety cap hack in the comment section, with one person writing, “You’re telling me this whole time there’s been a grown up cap under the kids’ cap?” Others joked, “Wow, first time I can say No Cap and it makes sense!” and “I went to school for 12 years and then paid for 2 years of college. What was it all for?”
On the flip side, several commenters said they were sticking to the “fun” original caps, with one quipping, “I took it off my vitamins just now to see, but it looked too naked after staring at it for a minute, so I put it back on.”
Several people noted that they needed a spoon or needle -nose pliers to remove the cap, but a pharmacist revealed you can ask your pharmacy for non-safety caps if you struggle with getting them open. “You may have to sign something to say you’ll keep out of reach of children/stored securely, but very helpful to those with arthritis/pain conditions,” they shared.
They also said that this little-known trick can also be applied to “sun hat-shaped bottle” caps, adding, “Your prescription drug caps often can be turned upside down and screwed on for a non-safety cap!”
Unfortunately, if you’re like me and were today years old when you learned this hack, there’s no getting back all the frustrating times you struggled to get a childproof cap open. However, I’ll be going through my medicine cabinet with a spoon and making all my medications and vitamin bottles adult-friendly for the foreseeable future.