In 2021, He and co-workers indroduced an effective approach to further boost the mechanical properties of PVAbased single networks. As opposed to Zhang et al, the authors used directional freeze-thawing at slower speed and higher temperature (-80 °C), which was followed by an additional salting-out post-processing step. The salting-out was achieved through immersion of the gel in an aqueous citrate solution (1.5 M) and created additional crystalline clusters within the hydrogel matrix. As a result, the tough hydrogel exhibited a stiffness of E = 1.98 MPa, while reaching a fracture energy of Γ = 131 kJ/m 2 and upholding an excellent stretchability (2900%). The water content was reported as 90% and should be carefully noted as it refers to the gel's water content prior to the salting-out step. We believe that immersion in the citrate solution may result in both increase of the solid content inside the gel as well as shrinkage due to the salting-out effect. Nonetheless, this example nicely demonstrates, how a synergy between two interactions can result in hierarchical microstructure and significant improvements in (fracture) mechanical properties.