Using saltwater nose rinses can help you get over a cold faster, cut down on how much medicine you need, and make it less likely to spread the cold to others in your home.

Using saltwater nose rinses and gargling might help you get over a cold faster by about 2 days if you start doing it right when symptoms begin.

Using saltwater nose rinses and gargling might help healthy adults with colds use 36% less store-bought medicine, according to a small study. This could mean fewer people need drugs for cold symptoms, but bigger studies are needed to be sure.

Using Nasodine spray doesn't really shorten how long a common cold lasts—it takes about 10 days to get better, just like using a simple saltwater spray.

Using saltwater nose rinses might help you get over a cold about a third of a day faster, but the study wasn't sure if this small difference was real luck or just chance.