14 Rain Hacks To Get You Through The UK's Horrible Wet Autumn Weather

The bad news is that you don’t live in Barbados, so this won’t be the last time you see drizzle. The good news is that there are some genius life hacks out there to make the rain seem almost fun.*

*Ok, fun might be pushing it

Office Hacks

1.Get your shoes dry using celebrity gossip
Your Zara boots are currently saturated under your desk, and the meeting you have in an hour is really not a ‘come in your Mickey Mouse socks’ kind of affair. Find a newspaper and cram as much of it into your shoes as you can.

Keep changing it as it soaks up the moisture, and bam: your boss will never get to see the Mickey specials after all.

2. Fix frizzy hair with hand cream
When you left for work, your hair was so poker straight, you were channelling Rachel from Friends circa 1999. By the time you got there, though, things had taken more of a Monica-on-the-beach-in-Barbados kind of turn.

Thankfully the answer is lying hidden in the back of your desk drawer: grab that hand cream and smooth a small amount over your hair.

Caught in a desperate bind, it definitely doubles up as serum.

Commuter Hacks

3. Keep socks or tights dry during a soggy tube/ train/ bus wait
Put sandwich bags over your socks or tights before you put your shoes on to go to work. Bonus points if you have time to make a ham butty to go in a third one for lunch.

4. Do a temporary umbrella fix
Umbrellas are really annoying. And they break at the WORST moments.

And then you're forced to nip into the nearest store to pick up whatever cripplingly expensive novelty brolly they happen to be peddling.

It is usually the case that the main canvas of the umbrella will have detached from it's metal spokes. A great trick is to grab some dental floss (thicker and more durable than the thread they use, in many cases) and reinforce all the joins.

If you haven't got time for this, pop some floss in your bag for emergency patch-ups!

5. Get a rain protector that’s touch-screen friendly
Slip everything of value in your handbag into a sandwich bag. Amazingly, touch screens still work through the plastic!

Who knew?!

6....and if you forget to do that, the rice thing really does work
Don’t know what we’re on about? Oh wow, this is going to change your life. So as soon as you realise any of your gadgets (iPad/ iPhone/ Kindle etc) have become wet, turn it off, dry it with a towel, submerge them in a bowl of uncooked rice and - hi Instagram addicts, this is the hard bit for you - leave it in there for 24-48 hours. When you take it out, your phone/ iPad/ Kindle should be as good as new.

7. Stop smelling like a wet dog
Keep turning up to work all soggy and then smelling like a wet pooch for the rest of the day? And how about the fact you were hoping to go for post-work drinks without having to change your dress...

If the rainy season has you rocking eau de dog on a regular basis, then you should really try this little trick.

Grab some neat vodka (isn't this how all great plans start?) - pour it into a spray bottle like one you might use for watering plants and take it to the office.

The vodka acts as a spray sanitiser for your outfit and it will neutralise that pesky pooch smell.

And while you’re at the booze cupboard of course… oh come on, you don’t need a life hack for this bit.

Fashion Hacks

8. Make all your shoes waterproof
Seriously, even your espadrilles. Even your Toms. Even those £3 shoes you bought at a market in Majorca that let water in when you’d swear blind it hadn’t rained for three weeks. First, buy some Beeswax (from hardware stores or Amazon) and rub it all over the shoes. Then blast with a hairdryer so it melts, leave it for half an hour and there you have it: waterproof shoes.

Note: Be careful with anything suede.

9. Rescue your Uggs with an emery board
Ok speaking of suede, for this you will need an emery board and a good red wine. Remove water marks by gently rubbing the area of the Uggs or any other suede boots/ shoes with the emery board.

The red wine is just for drinking, FYI, but if you’ve been rained on all the way home, we thought you’d probably need it.

(PS If you get rain marks on leather boots, a damp cloth alone should get them off.)

10. Get the rain mark off your best top
Put a white towel on your ironing board and place the top on it with the stain facing downwards, then sponge it with a damp cloth.

Iron it, then move it to a dry part of the towel and keep repeating the process until the stain is gone.

The whiteness of the towel removes the risk of any colour running onto your lovely top as it absorbs the water stain.

Beauty Hacks

11. Keep your makeup on with milk of magnesia
Avoiding anything powdery on your face and using all liquid (cream blush/ liquid foundation etc) will help, as will waterproof mascara, of course, but before you go out into the rain, the other thing you could really do with is a primer.

Then again, primers are expensive for something that goes on invisible, stays invisible and seems to make very little difference to your whole makeup look.

here's a handy substitute. Not a lot of people know this but, Milk of Magnesia, available for as little as £3.69 and usually used for stomach settling, is actually just as effective.

12 .Protect your hair with a toothbrush
Spray a toothbrush with hairspray and comb it through so every bit of it is coated evenly. This way your hair stands a lot better chance of making it to work/ your night out looking half normal, and you wont get that weird, stiff look that you sometimes get from spraying directly onto the hair.

13. Stop your makeup running with a beauty blast from the past
Remember that phase in the late ‘90s when everyone was going mad for blotting paper? If the rain’s made your makeup smear down your face, you need to take a trip down nostalgia lane.

(Also works with toilet seat covers, but, er, that might be a little weird.)

The difference between using blotting paper and, say, something like regular toilet tissue or a towel, is that it won't take off half your makeup with it, meaning you won't need to waste time doing unnecessary touch-ups.

Just blot-and-go!

Pet Hack

14. De-sog your dog walk with genius spray
Walking a dog in the sun: Joy! Endorphins! Fresh air!

Walking a dog in the rain: Soggy! Miserable! No-one wants to be here!

Here’s how to make it better: firstly, even if it makes you feel like Paris Hilton, get your dog a raincoat.

Then, buy some water repellent spray - usually used for waterproofing tents during camping and outdoors pursuits - and spray it on every surface involved in your dog walk: the lead, his coat, your coat, your boots…

Try this Nikwax tent waterproofer.

It’s VERY effective.  

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