No Buying Toiletries in February Challenge

mcculloch29

I keep finding little freebie sample tubes in different places, not "in's" as such but rediscovereds. Mostly the Olay 7mls.
I've just finished reading Kath Kelly's How I Lived a Year on Just a Pound a Day. She mentions freebies as a great source of toiletries. The book is wonderful, how annoying that it is out of print when the far inferior Not Buying It by Judith Levine is still going.

Kath used 29p a litre shampoo from Asda which lasted her pretty much the entire year once she had used up what she had at the start of the challenge. Soap was 3 bars for 19p and toothpaste 21p.

She mentions free haircuts from trainees; around here you do pay - not a lot, though. Several of the local colleges do hair cheaply. I've never been tempted, but perhaps one day.

welshgirl78

Ah, all this Mallory Towers chat has inspired me to say HI! I was desperate to go to boarding school due to these books - and went! I loved it, we had midnight feasts and used to call them "Lecture on the Albatross" so our teachers didn't know what we were talking about... we were so naive!

I am in for the month... been pretty good but in a MSE way have signed up for a Boots trial over 4 weeks day and night cream + cleanser - they are lovely and moisturising, I am really enjoying using them although it doesn't help the stash is freeeeee - well actually they pay me as I have to go in and have my skin monitored... not allowed to say too much but think that is ok!!!

They also do product trials where you can go in and order stuff to try so have a dry shampoo arriving soon - not something I have stashed so I feel no guilt!

Hope you are all well, have been reading on and off but am def still inspired! GL with the UU

sarah*a

Evening All

Well I had my 'Magic Spa' Bath and after the addition of some Snow Fairy it was great :rotfl:

My homemade scrub that I added cocoa butter to has gone a bit :eek::eek: it now looks and feels like a really thick gel - the other day it was a creamy lotion :huh: I added a bit more sugar and it still works superbly though

Two UU's and a Splutterer for me:

UU's
Herbal Essence Fruity Citrus Conditioner (something like that) - WIBA? No - had to use far too much to get a decent result and thats just not MSE
No7 Softening Foot Cream - WIBA - probably - did what it said on the tube and didn't smell minty Still have half a jar of BS Peppermint Foot Lotion :doh:and half a tube of S&G to go so might ask OH for the No7 one for my birthday. There'll be a 3for2 again by then so will probably need other things too

My Cleanser is spluttering but will probably last the weekend - have 3/4 of S&G Clean Mary in stock so don't need to buy yet

Have to venture town-wards tomorrow to get OH's shampoo so will try to focus just on the mens shampoo shelf :rotfl:

Have a good Friday :beer:

thevicster

1 uu to report - valentino v absolu perfume - wiba? yes! I love this perfume and it's one of my HGs, lots of nice comments when I wear it!

Hope you're feeling okay after your fall sarah*a

And, love the sound of the Kath Kelly book, will try and get myself a copy of it from somewhere. I also loved the Mallory Towers books, must look into getting some of the Chalet School ones.

You guys might know about this site, but if not, check it out, it can be a great way of getting new books cheaply:

http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/TheLibrary.aspx

Bronnie

Evening ladies.

I'm struggling with the Pink Rose Candle Philosophy.....or rather the flip side of it, as in that life's too short to use stuff you hate...................except when your an MSE'r, then that throws the old waste not want not thing into the mix :think:

Where's this leading?

Well I'm sitting in bed smelling like one of these http://andrea2007.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/large_solero.jpg
all because there was an abandoned bottle of BS Mango Whip Body Lotion on the bathroom windowledge (abandoned because the pump action wouldn't dispense the last inch out), and I felt duty-bound to use it tonight because I wanted to get rid of it and I can't bear waste .

There is still some of the hateful satsuma body polish staring at me reprovingly and a bottle of something bizarrely called On a High Hydrating Puree(BS) which I don't really like the smell of either and was abandoned whilst still half full.

As most of you know, these are not my products, they are my DD's. She doesn't have a massive stash, she just keeps moving onto the next product!

What I really want to do is just chuck her unwanted stuff. She would happily chuck it, it's just me that hates waste. I don't want all these bottles lying round the house and I want to be using my own nice things and not lying here smelling like an ice lolly :eek:

Moan over. Thank you for listening!!

mcculloch29

Oh Bronnie... how ironic that the person who put up the Solero pic was Andrea; it wasn't me, honest.
Body lotion makes very good leather food/cleaner.
Would the body polish clean something? It's not a product I use.
My take on this is that if it makes you feel yerch using it then it flies in the face of PRCP and is deeply counter-productive to the whole point of using toiletries. They make us feel good, smell good, look good. Let's face it, a bar of cheap soap and a jar of Vaseline would cleanse and moisturise us. But (Kath Kelly on her £1 a day excepted) very few of us would do that.
We want and indeed, need to use products that make us feel good.
You would send back a meal that tasted vile, or complain to the manufacturers if it was cooked at home.
If the product is poor, fire off an email.
You would never knowingly eat food that had decayed, so do feel justified in binning toiletries!

thevicster

Bronnie...what And said! Perhaps you could use body polish to scrub the loo with or something similar??!! I kinda fancy eating a solero now...!

lynseydee

Roshy, I agree with everyone saying go to Australia and talking about regretting it if you don't.

Obviously not along the same lines but just before I met my husband I was thinking of selling up and moving back down to Cornwall, where I'm from, and starting my life over again down there. Then I met my husband and thought I need to decide between moving to Cornwall and him and I chose my husband. Well now I'm in a situation where he doesn't want to move down to Cornwall so I've lost my dream. What I should have done was tell him I was moving and if he really wanted to be with me he would have followed.

So I say go for it.

lynseydee

rosemary54 wrote: »

I did sign up with loads of sites but some only send very few surveys and dont pay much,toluna is one such and I get so annoyed with them as you answer lots of ?s then they say you are not wanted:mad:....some really good ones are ipsos,mysurvey,pinecone(pays money into paypal same day you do the survey and also sends stuff for you to trial) and consumerpulse....this last one pays you for telling them what you buy on items like beauty(:rotfl:)clothes,books 500 points a week plus up to 20 times 500 points a month and sometimes extra points (500 =50p)
I do spend too much time on surveys but if I can make some money at home in my spare time then why not:rotfl:

Mags30 wrote: »

@rosemary54 Thanks for that, consumerpulse sounds like my kind of thing:rotfl:Will check it out later when I have time. I've never had a Pinecone invite. Toluna is the one I've been doing best with, I hate it but the Amazon vouchers are great when they eventually arrive.

I also find onepoll quite good as you can pick and choose which surveys you want to do in the list and your payouts could build up quite quickly, although I have done surveys for a while, really need to get back into doing them as one survey company (can't remember which one now, might have been lightspeed when they were around) paid in luncheon vouchers and it paid for my Christmas presents a couple of years ago.

footymadgal

welshgirl78 wrote: »

Ah, all this Mallory Towers chat has inspired me to say HI! I was desperate to go to boarding school due to these books - and went! I loved it, we had midnight feasts and used to call them "Lecture on the Albatross" so our teachers didn't know what we were talking about... we were so naive!

I was also a Mallory Towers/St Clares fan and always wanted a midnight feast! Welshgirl, you have lived the dream :rotfl:!