The Once-Practical Item You Can Score At The Thrift Store That Makes Stunning Decor

The next time you spy an ornate, gold-finished tube roughly the size of a Pringles can while thrifting, add it to your cart. This gilded filigree cylinder is a vintage hairspray can cover. These curious containers once served as pretty countertop camouflage. Hairspray covers made of metal or other materials were popular in the middle of the last century, and one may be waiting for you at your favorite second-hand shop. How you use it is only limited by your creative vision, too.

These quirky contraptions can still decorate bathroom countertops as hairspray hiders, but their handy shape and pretty patterning make them worthy of showing off elsewhere, as well. Lucky thrifters who share these scores online occasionally don't know the cover's outdated function. Many helpful commenters suggest that they're candle covers. TikToker Leigh Gonzales tested how well a hairspray cover would perform over a lit candle, and while the light through the cutout patterns was lovely, the live flame made the metal hairspray cover dangerously hot.

Hairspray covers certainly can cover LED candles, but their shape and features also recommend them for displaying jewelry with style, diffusing incense, disguising unattractive essentials, and plenty of other possibilities. Chances are, their beauty, versatility, and quirkiness will take hairspray covers from forgotten items to sought-after thrift store finds.

Now that you know hairspray covers are vintage decor items you should never leave at the thrift store, the next question is, "How should you use it?" Besides casting patterned light safely from an LED candle, hairspray covers can still play practical roles. Head to the bathroom, and check out that unsightly can of room spray. Easy fix: slide the cover over it for instant panache. Keeping with the odor-busting theme, little dishes of baking soda placed around the house to absorb smells can do their job more attractively hidden under a can cover. A cone of incense on a dish beneath a cover appeals to two senses at once when the aroma and smoke waft bewitchingly through the perforated sides.

Another effective reincarnation of these objects is a jewelry holder. Their lacy sides lend themselves perfectly to displaying hook-backed earrings. If your piece has a tall, thin knob atop it (like many do), it might be just the right size to hold a collection of rings.