Soap

 

When it comes to keeping things clean and relatively germ free nothing beats good old soap and water.  I keep it pretty simple and thrifty for us when it comes to soap.  I don't feel the need to buy anything fancy or to spend a lot of money on these things.  Bar soap is relatively inexpensive and I purchase it at the dollar store in 2 packs, sometimes they even have it in 3 packs.  I also happily accept the little hotel bars from my friends that travel.  Whenever we travel we always collect the unused bars of soap, bottles of shampoo & conditioner, even the little lotions.  I keep my hotel soaps in jars in our downstairs bathroom because one of my grandma's used to do that and it has kind of stuck with me and is another reminder I have of her.

 

Some of the Free Items I've collected this year

I purchase shower gel at Bath & Body Works whenever it is on sale and I also have coupons.  I love their Buy 2 Get 3 Free offers and I will go ahead and get five bottles at once and use a 20% OFF coupon to shave even more off the price.  I also get Free Item coupons and I always use those for extra bottles of soaps or lotions.  The smaller sizes on the Free Item coupons I save for gifts and stocking stuffers.

 

I bought this dispenser for $1 on sale at Rite-Aid
I've been refilling it now for over a year

I enjoy changing them out for the holidays

I've shared many, many times with you that I use one tablespoon of shower gel stirred into a cup of warm water to make foaming handsoap refill solution to top up our foaming handsoap dispensers I keep at each sink.  About once a year when Bath & Body Works has their foaming handsoaps on sale for around $2 each I will stock up (I will also use a 20% OFF coupon), but in between times I refill them with my homemade solution.  It works perfectly and allows me to use some of those extra sale soaps to pair with a dish towel as a nice little gift.

 

Halloween soap dispenser at the kitchen sink

My favorite Fall handsoap - Pumpkin Marshmallow Latte

I really enjoy using my soaps as part of our home decor too.  The jars of bar soaps as well as my bottles of shower gels are on display in our bathroom.  At our sink I use a tray to keep my soaps corralled so they not only look nice, but it helps me to keep things neat and tidy.  I purchased the glass tray for our kitchen at a thrift store and used a Corelle Sidekick for the downstairs bathroom.  I liked how it looked in there so well that when I found another one at a thrift store I purchased it to use in our upstairs bathroom after we refurbished it.

 

I picked up 5 of these a couple years ago, plenty to last a few years for us
2 have been in use and these 3 are still waiting their turn

Additionally shampoo, hair conditioner, laundry and dishwashing detergent is usually purchased on sale and with a coupon or at the dollar store.  I am not overly particular when it comes to those items as long as it gets the job done, which we find it usually does.  We also make sure we aren't wasteful and overusing our products so they last longer and therefore we don't need to purchase as much.  That is a good thrifty trick in and of itself.

 

I picked these bar soaps up on sale at Walgreens for 69¢ each
I love how good this soap smells

So while soap may not be the most interesting subject out there at the moment I felt it was worth touching on.  I do feel soap is a pretty important item in our lives, especially these days.  In my mind nothing beats good old soap and water to get the job done.