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People Share Product Purposes That Aren't What They Were Designed For And Here's 26 Of The Best Ones
Home & DesignSEP 18, 2025

People Share Product Purposes That Aren't What They Were Designed For And Here's 26 Of The Best Ones

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Even the biggest discoveries can happen by accident. So it's only natural that many of the world's famous products were created for one purpose but people found them useful for a completely different task.
In an attempt to learn about as many of these cases as they could, Redditor u/ljchazal posted a question on the platform, asking other users, "What products serve a better purpose than what they were designed for?" And everyone immediately started submitting their answers.
As of this article, there are 14K comments under the post, many of which provide surprising insights into such things as talcum powder or botox. Bored Panda went through them all and handpicked a selection we believe is worthy of your time. Enjoy.

#21

Using a melon baller to scoop watermelon balls from the fruit as a creative product purpose repurposing tool.
Melon baller. It's for making balls from melons but works perfectly to take the core out of apples and pears.
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#22

Ive used the same carabiner as a keyring for over a decade.
Its never had to support anywhere near the kilo Newtons its listed to be able to support.
Slipping keys on and off it is kilo tonnes easier and secure than normal key rings though.
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#23

Vacuum sealers.
My FoodSaver never sees anything edible. Instead, I use it to protect infrequently used items from dust & moisture, and to make archived papers (taxes, passport, etc.) easier to store. It's also very useful to repackage bulky or specialized cleaning products & supplies & emergency items.
Food, that just gets eaten, usually.
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#24

Large roll of bubble wrap repurposed for an unconventional use shared by people in product purposes.
Bubblewrap initially was just fancy wallpaper.
Also, superglue was invented by accident, when engineers couldn't separate glass sheets after attempting to make clear plastic. Later it was used in battlefields to temporarily close wounds.
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#25

My dad bought a fruit scale specifically for the purpose of weighing meatballs. His reasoning was that, if all the meatballs he prepared are the same weight, he'd only have to poke one to know whether or not they were all cooked because the heat absorption would be more or less identical.
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