How to Apply Wood Stain

These extra steps, taken before you even open the can, will help make your stain go on more easily and help ensure a frustration-free experience and seamless results. Sand the wood, starting with coarse-grit sandpaper. You can use a belt or orbiting sander, but renting a drum sander may be more effective for very large…

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Best Plastic Wrap

Pros: Strongest wrap we tested, rips cleanly, excellent adhesion, doesn’t leak.Cons: Doesn’t handle chicken-pounding as well as we’d like. If you use only one brand of plastic wrap for the rest of your life, make it Stretch-Tite. This one far exceeded the others in our lab stretch and tension tests, and the only other brand…

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How to Increase Your Laptop’s Battery Life

If you only do one thing, do this. The biggest power hog in your laptop is, by far, the screen. The brighter it is, the more power it consumes. Unless you’re working under direct sunlight, you probably don’t need it at its highest setting. Lowering the brightness is as simple as tapping a function key…

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Best and Worst Home Internet Providers

In addition to those recommended ISPs, nine more providers earned very good Overall Satisfaction Scores. Like our recommended ISPs, most of these are regional providers. For instance, Allo Fiber, which operates in 50 cities throughout Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, and Nebraska, earned top marks for service, speed, reliability, and technical support. Other providers that do well…

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Best Weather Stripping and Window Sealing Tapes

In my own apartment, I often feel a breeze coming in through the leaky windows. I can’t install new windows because I’m renting, and even if I could, I wouldn’t know the first thing about them. I’m not a DIYer—or even very good at assembling furniture—so when I look for solutions to these types of…

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We Tried It: Cleancult, an Eco-Friendly Household Cleaning Line

The name “Cleancult” is a play on words; it’s a cleaning product brand, yes, but it also implies that the products themselves are “clean”—i.e., made without, nor producing, harmful substances or chemicals. The brand aims to “help more people switch from a bad plastic habit to a cleaner ritual” by encouraging consumers to refill their…

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Best Headphones of 2025

Allen St. John Allen St. John has been a senior product editor at CR since 2016, focusing on digital privacy, audio devices, printers, and home products. He was a senior editor at Condé Nast and a contributing editor at publications including Road & Track and The Village Voice. A New York Times bestselling author, he’s…

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