Reduce costs, or reduce waste? Bath gel, shampoo, hand soaps

Olliegami

Hi,

I have tried to look through the forum for other posts on the subject, but I wanted to make a point in particular anyway.

At the moment I buy
- inecto shampoo and conditioner
- bubble bath
- hand soap

(I'm quite low maintenance, actually.)

Usually in plastic bottles. I wanted to work out the best way to cut costs and perhaps do less damage to the environment at the same time.

So, first I thought - what if I buy those huge 3l bottles of shampoo and conditioner. It turned out that the cheapest I could find online were £20 each, but for the same amount of the shampoo (in 10 bottles, mind.) it was £14.90.

So then I looked at buying castile liquid soap and maybe making my own concoctions with some essential oils & stuff.

It feels like there is a world of information out there and I'd just like to get some opinions.

What do you use?

CFAF

We have semi successfully made the transition to hard soap, shampoo and bubble bath. I haven’t found a conditioner, yet, that doesn’t come in a bottle and works with my curly hair.

Like you, we’re low maintenance. However, my partner was the catalyst for the change in trying to reduce cost and help the environment. A 500ml bottle of shower gel and shampoo would almost last two weeks. Hand soap the same. He works in a mucky trade.

Now, a shampoo bar each can last us 2-3 months (£5 each from Etsy). The large bars of soap we bought with Christmas vouchers in Feb (£10 each from Lush - I cut them up for hand and shower soap) will need to be replaced soon. The solid bubble bath, also bought in Feb with the Lush vouchers, is still going strong. I bought two, £5.95 each, but you only need a small amount and the bubbles are huge. We don’t bath often though.

I find Lush great to get started but Etsy is usually cheaper and you support small businesses. I’d post links but I’m too new!

dolly84

I've made a lot of switches to plastic free things and the bathroom was one of the easier areas. I use Friendly Soap for washing my face, I use the Patchouli & Sandlewood one and slice it into 4 pieces and just put one out at a time, I have fussy skin but as Patchouli is antibacterial it is working well. We have a stash of shower gel and conditioner to work through but will be moving to bar soap in place of shower gel - again in slices to cut down on waste (going soft), we have already moved to shampoo bars and love the ones the Yorkshire Soap Co do.


Another thing you could do is to save some of your bottles and get them refilled at health food shops - many of them do refills of Faith in Nature products.

Doom_and_Gloom

I use a lush shampoo bar; current one has been going since May. I have long hair, nearly to small of back, but only wash it once or twice a week. Getting the right bar for your hair is a big thing.
If I want to condition my hair I use coconut oil leave in for 15 or so and then wash out, but rarely need to do this.
We have bar soaps. Our current ones are from geekyclean. Though they don't seem to have an option to buy just the bar now we have soap tins which is rather annoying . Will have to e-mail them and find out if it is possible to buy just the soaps.
Don't use bubble bath but Lush do bubble bars which always look good when they demonstrate them in store to people.

The outlay may be a bit high but as the products last, it can work out the same price or even cheaper I've found.

Linda32

Buy one pot hand soap dispenser and fill with cream bath which comes in bigger bottles than hand wash. Or bars of soap.

PasturesNew

Once a year I shuffle into Home Bargains or £land and grab the largest bottle of shampoo that has "some sort of a name/branding" (e.g. Pantene) and I spend under £1. I pick up 2 bottles of Original Source per year when I see it cheapest. So that's it. Total spend about £3/year.

I do, though, keep my eye on the size of the portions when I pour it out You could save a lot by simply reducing how much you pour out for each application. I probably use 1-2 peas of shampoo for the first wash and 2-3 peas for the second. It lathers up a lot and there's no waste.

You'd be surprised just how little it takes and how far it goes.

Olliegami

Thank you for all your replies!

Moving forward I think I'm going to try moving to soap bars. I'd love to be able to support a local etsy business, so I'll get looking into those!

pollypenny

I've returned to using soap bars. However, I found a stock of bars, which had been given in sets, in various drawers, out there to scent the clothes.

They are lasting ages

When I have to buy soap, I'll go for Imperial Leather which doesn't crack.