Healthcare products can often be expensive and are not always made of ingredients that are 100% natural. However, some products such as hand soap can be used in a specific way to make them last longer and save money in the long-term. This doesn’t have to compromise on the quality of soap that you use.
Follow these simple tips you can start implementing today to help you have healthier skin still extending a life of a bar soap.
Leave it to settle
Once you purchase a bar of soap, leave it unwrapped and in open air for between six and eight weeks. Allowing this time for the soap to settle will normally mean that the product is more solid when used in water. Soap that turns into mush under running water wastes large amounts of the product unnecessarily. In the meantime, it’s best to buy another bar for use in the shower until the original one has settled for long enough.
Avoid using your hands to wash
Use a hand towel and rub your soap against it. This technique makes your lather last far longer than it would do if you used your hands and the soap washed away. The ideal product is a bag, which could give up to three showers worth of lather and make your entire bar of soap last far longer as a result.
Keep the soap dry and away from water
Keep your bar of soap stored away from the shower. The ideal soap holder should have as many holes as possible to provide the best possible air circulation. This will allow the soap to dry faster and prevent it from breaking down under the water stream. The best advice is to place the soap at the opposite end of the shower rather than in the built-in holder in the corner.
Leave it to dry completely
Your soap bar will go through multiple uses within a relatively short space of time. This is particularly the case in a large household. It is therefore essential that you leave it to dry completely before going back to use it. This avoids the bar melting away, prevents waste of the product and, again, it will help the bar to last longer. If your household has multiple occupants, consider having a separate bar of soap for each member, together with their own space to place it. Remember to put it as far away from the shower as possible.
Separate the soap into parts
Contrary to what you may expect, the smaller the surface area of the bar, the longer it will last. Therefore, cutting up a larger bar of soap into half, thirds or quarters makes sense and creates chunks of reasonable sizes. As long as you keep the soap completely dry between use and you place it away from the shower, your soap should last a lot longer than it normally would using this method.
Use liquid soap
One simple way to eliminate too many small bars of soap is to turn it into liquid. You can prevent waste by using any left-over shavings or tiny parts and putting them together. Soap in liquid form also prevents waste through wearing away under water and there is no need to worry about where it will be stored. Liquid soap can be made simply through dissolving shavings and soap parts in water in a saucepan. Allow the liquid to cool slowly for several hours, lose volume and form a mixture. This mixture can be poured easily into a container using a funnel or a measuring cylinder.
Use Foaming Soap
A simple trick is to put liquid soap in a container of foamy soap. You can also do this when you are making your own soap if you adjust the water ratio accordingly.
One easy way to help your wallet is to buy scrap soap in bulk rather than the nicely shaped ones in the shop. In the end, purchasing scrap soap in large amounts is no different to buying a large bar of soap in the shop. It is worth compromising the look of the soap if the price is more reasonable. Both do exactly the same job, and in the end that is what you are after.
Using soap and skin products does not have to be expensive. With the simple and easy tips above, you can save a lot of money while still looking after your body with natural ingredients.