I did the math. Since I use about three cotton swabs per day -- for things like cleaning my ears, doing my makeup and taking off nail polish -- this means I use over 1,000 cotton swabs in a year.

The lab employees administered legitimate tests using sterile cotton swabs to about 100 people a day and reused swabs for tests on about 150 others, which would amount to thousands of tests over ...

3. Clean Up Messy Manicures A cotton swab is the perfect tool for cleaning up at-home manicures. Simply dip a Q-tip into some nail polish remover and use it to wipe away any errant bits of polish!

Q-tips, or cotton swabs, are safe to use outside your ear, but they should not be stuck inside your ear to clear out wax. We'll discuss why and what to do instead.