How much do you pay for hand soap? $2-$3 per bottle?
At this point, you guys know that I'm a fan of making my own anything rather than buying it. Here's another money $aver: homemade liquid hand soap.
While we're at it, let me briefly get on my soap box (pun intended) and say that it's also an environmentally friendly make-your-own. Buying less soap = throwing away less plastic. Duh, winning.
All you really need to do this is a bar of soap and some water.
Now, I'd like to tell you to buy local. Get the bar soap that is all natural. Avoid soaps with ingredients that you can't pronounce (much like your food!)
but
know, when you do that, it's going to cost a bit more. If you're like me and and are a bit skeptical about making your own soap, then start with some cheap-o-deluxe bar soap. I got mine at Target at $1.15 for a three pack.
Here's the run down...
- grate your soap bar in a cheese grater
- measure 1 cup of grated soap for every 3 cups of water you use
- mix soap and water and a saucepan and heat over medium heat until soap is dissolved in water. be sure not to let the soap/water boil over...that spells a messy (clean???) disaster.
- let the soap/water cool before putting it into your soap dispensers
I was actually pretty surprised with the outcome. My homemade soap filled up 2 soap dispensers with about 1 cup to spare. So I essentially turned one bar of soap into 3 bottles of hand soap bringing my total per container to grand total of:
$0.38
So, let's recap:
- I'm keeping my plastic soap dispensers out of a landfill
- I'm paying a fraction of the price that I would for a new dispenser full of hand soap
- Thus far (and I've been using these for about two weeks) my home made liquid soap is still liquid and works just as well as any soap I would have bought at the store
I mean, even if I had bought a more expensive soap, it would have been worth it. Next time I'm going all out...I am going to stock up on bar soap from Trader Joe's!!
How do you save money on household cleaning products?
