Cast your mind back to your childhood and picture opening a box of new trainers, rifling through the wrapping and finding a couple of peculiar packets nestled among your shoes.
Seconds later, your mum would likely be rushing over at superhuman speed to knock them out of your hands and warn you that they 'are not a toy' - but she never did explain what they are actually used for instead.
It turns out that we weren't putting ourselves in mortal danger by simply touching the silica gel packets and they can actually come in handy in a few scenarios.
One woman who came to this revelation all by herself has been encouraging people not to throw them away when your unboxing your new kicks, handbags, electronics, medicine, and even some foods.
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Rachel Allyson, better known on TikTok as @plumcots, shared a video online detailing her life hack.
She said: "Stop throwing these little packet things away! The little beads that come in anything and everything that you buy...I had no idea what they were until a week ago.
"I thought by touching them, you would end up in the hospital. I remember reading the 'Do Not Eat' label and thinking, 'Why would they put poison in the box? What’s the point of them?'"
To answer her question - the little white pouches are packed with a drying agent which is typically a form of sand, silicon dioxide, that can absorb moisture in enclosed spaces.
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According to Packaging Brands: "It is used in two forms; indicating and non-indicating. Indicating silica gel contains cobalt that causes the crystals to change colour when moisture is absorbed and as cobalt is toxic, care should be taken to avoid contact with food."
Rachel began to reel off the advantages of piling up your silica gel packets instead of instinctively throwing them away.
She said: "If you drop your phone in water, put it in rice? Put it in this - it's so much better. These are literally designed to get moisture out of s**t.
"Another thing - which I just recently tested - makeup brushes. I always lay my makeup brushes on a towel and let them dry overnight. These in a towel. Give it like an hour, it was dry.
"Now I get why it's like 'Do Not Eat', because it will literally suck the moisture out of your body."
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According to Heathline, silica gel is chemically inert meaning that it won't break down in the body and cause poisoning - if you even manage to swallow it.
Because it won't break down, both the beads and the packaging are a big choking hazard, hence why they are labelled with 'Do Not Eat' and 'Throw Away After Use'.
Heathline says: "Eating silica gel shouldn’t make you sick. Most often, it’ll pass through your body and exit without any harmful effects to you. The gel has the potential to cause intestinal obstruction if eaten in large quantities."
Other health experts warn that ingesting them can cause nausea and vomiting, while people are also advised not to open the tiny packets.
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Rachel also said other people had recommended plonking a few silica gel packets on your car dashboard when the windscreen is steamed up to speed up the process of clearing it.
Describing them as 'magical', she added: "I'm going to start collecting them and put them in a jar, I think you can buy them individually too."
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Social media users were pretty stunned to find out that silica gel packets aren't the devil incarnate after all this time and flooded the comment section with their thoughts.
One said: "I thought they was orbeez!"
Another wrote: "I thought it was just to keep bugs out?"
A third joked: "They aren't a little bonus pack of candy with purchases??"
A fourth added: "They're like little mini dehumidifiers."
And a fifth chimed in: "Good, because I used to collect these for years."
Featured Image Credit: TikTok/@plumcots / Getty Stock Image