Unconventional Uses for a Belt
A belt might be one of the most essential things in your wardrobe. You may have multiple belts made out of many different materials—leather, cloth, plastic, nylon, rope, etc. While belts can be great for accenting your shoes or for just holding up your pants, you can actually use belts for so many other things. Here are some unconventional uses for a belt.
Arm Sling in an Emergency
If you’re out hiking and you don’t have easy access to medical attention or supplies, it can be a huge emergency if you become injured. Getting cuts, spraining ankles or breaking arms can all happen while you’re in the great outdoors. In this situation, there’s no hospital or store to get an arm sling from. So, just take off your belt and use it as a sling to hold the injured arm. Simply secure the belt around the opposite shoulder and tighten it as needed. Then the injured person can rest their arm in the belt. This will suffice until you can get them proper medical attention.
Wearing Around a Dress or Shirt
This was a prominent fashion trend for ladies several years ago. Instead of using belts to hold up their pants, they would wear belts over the tops of their dresses and shirts. This was typically done over flowy clothing, and it was mainly to cinch the waist. So, it made it look like the ladies had teeny-tiny waists. This trend comes in and out of style every once in a while. However, a well-placed belt over a shirt or dress can still be done tastefully while not looking off-trend.
Securing Items for Camping
If you’re a camping enthusiast, belts can be used when packing for camping. You can use them to secure bedrolls, keep boxes closed, create a way to get up a boulder, etc. You can even use belts to hang up items. How many times have you gone camping and forgotten a way to hang your lantern or to hang up wet clothes? Perhaps you need something to help secure larger items together in the trunk of your car. Belts can be used in so many ways for camping!
Used as a Strop to Sharpen a Knife
If you’re a knife enthusiast, you might already know this one. While this only applies to leather belts, it can be super useful. You can actually use a leather belt as a strop to sharpen a knife. The leather helps to remove the burr from the edges of a knife and smooth it out. It also polishes the edge of the knife.
Tourniquet for an Injury
As we talked about, sometimes we don’t have access to the medical supplies we need in dire moments. Even if you’re not too far from medical treatment, if someone is bleeding out, it can be life-threatening within a short amount of time. When you need more time to get them to where they can get proper medical attention, every single minute counts. So, you can use your belt as a tourniquet. This can prevent blood loss for a bit and can buy them more time. Using your belt as a tourniquet just might save someone’s life.
Rustic Home Decor
If you have a belt with a cool design such as a rope or nylon belt, you can always cut the belts up and use them for home decor. People use rope for all kinds of things around their houses. You can take pieces of rope belts and use them to hang picture frames on the wall. You can also use belts as drawer pulls for a really cool statement piece. There are always ways to incorporate belts into home decor!
As Protection for your Hands
Another use for a belt while camping could be as hot-hands or something to keep you from burning yourself. If you’re cooking with metal pots, pans and kettles while you’re camping over an open fire, those items can get pretty hot. The last thing you want is a burned hand. So, you can take off your belt and loop it around the handle of the pot or pan to create makeshift hot-hands for camping.
A Way to Organize Your Closet
You can always use belts for organization, as well. You could use a belt to hold earrings, hair clips, headbands, etc. If you don’t use any of those things, you can use belts looped around a bar in your closet to hold your jeans, pants or even baseball caps. Belts are sturdy and won’t slip even under the weight. This also keeps your pants or hats easily accessible, and you can see all of them (unlike if they were tucked away in a drawer.)
Holding Books Together
You can always use flat belts to hold books together. If, for example, you have a bunch of really heavy and thick books and no bag to carry them, you can always bind them together with a belt. You can then cinch the belt around the books, and use a rubber band looped around the belt a few times to make a handle. This is the way books were carried by school children until they went out of style sometime in the 1970s.
Carrying More
While this is probably not the most unconventional way to use a belt, it is important to know. You can use a belt to hold pocket knives, your phone, a walkie-talkie and much more. In fact, many law enforcement officers use a belt to hold items such as guns, pepper spray, handcuffs, radios and more. Belts can make it so you have everything on hand at a moment's notice, without actually having to carry anything in your hands.
Belts can be a wonderfully helpful item to have on hand in a pinch—and not just for holding up your pants. The kind of belt you wear also makes a statement about you and the things you enjoy. If you’re looking for a sturdy belt with customizable sizing and an awesome design, check out Lizard Tail Belts.