Years ago I was asked to be a guest writer for a special online and weekly section of a local news organization. Finding thing to write about of local interest can be difficult. Of course all over the world environmental issues and saving money are on many people's minds. So there I was uploading an article promoting green ideas as money saving techniques. While some people use Duck Tape (Duck Tape is a registered trademark of Duck Brands) for all things I use rubbing alcohol and solvents for many things. One tip I had promoted was rinsing or dipping razor blades in rubbing alcohol to prevent mineral deposits from forming on the blade's edge.

Fast forward to a last week when a cashier at a local discount store told me, as I was standing at the check out, to dip my razor blades in rubbing alcohol to prolong their life. I asked her where she had heard that and she said a relative found it in a publication from the same news local news organization and mentioned it to her. I said "I wrote that article before. When did you see it?". After learning it was a recent article I began to wonder if someone had taken that tip from my article to add it to theirs or not. At the time I wrote the article I tried to verify this tip or look for sources that had already published it but was not able to find any article promoting rubbing alcohol to prolong razor blades, only to disinfect them.

Since my publication of the tip I have seen it in articles on the Internet. I don't claim to be the first or only person to devise this or publish this tip and I don't mind the world knowing. I have not seen the new article myself but I just hope if it exists the writer put in an effort to acknowledge their source. The fact is I cannot find the article online at that news organization's web site, only one about using rubbing alcohol to disinfect razor blades.