Great Idea - Save TONS of Hand Soap & $$ - Refill Foaming Hand Wash

[Nifty]

This fits in about 3 different SS categories: roll your own, Trash to treasure, or everything else frugality... so I just chose this one.

Background: Our two girls use a LOT of hand soap. This is generally a good thing, but they go through it like it is going out of style.

My wife purchased some Method foaming hand soap at Target and it worked great for our girls. It takes very liquid soap and foams it up as it is pumped. They seemed to use less soap with this new dispenser.

Well, when the container went empty I had a thought: The soap in the pump was very high in viscosity (i.e., seemed to have a high water content). So I took the bottle and filled it with 80% water and then 11 pumps (from a regular soap dispenser) of liquid dish cleaning liquid (like Dawn). I mixed it up and guess what... it worked PERFECTLY and felt pretty much exactly the same as the original mix.

Since then we've used regular liquid hand soap, dish soap, and mixes of the two. The biggest consistent factor was about 20 to 1 of water to soap.

We've been doing this for about 6 months and thought I should finally post it!

 

[freemotion]

I also got pumps from Target, the cheap Dial knock-offs. I refill with a natural liquid castile soap like Dr. Bronner's or Dessert Essence and it works great....about 4:1 ratio, though. Much less soap needed with Dawn, which is very sudsy. If you don't mind cheap fragrances (I can't take the toxins) you can use cheap dollar store shampoos in them, too.

 

[me&thegals]

We do this, too. Saves a ton of soap with kids in the house!

 

[Mackay]

Great ideas!

I would be interested in purchasing foaming pumps like that. Anybody have a clue where? wholesale, I'm thinking...

 

[miss_thenorth]

We've been doing this too for about two years, but your bottle is nicer to look at than ours. I was trying to think of ways to cover the bottle so it didn't look like I got it at the dollar store (which is where I bought it). before they had the bottles at the door store, pampered chef sold one for about $10 years and years ago. I still have that one and still use it.

 

[sylvie]

Great idea-I'll give it a try.
I have a cheap foaming dispenser from WalMart with a jug of refill. Soon as that's empty I'll switch.

I'm a little leery about anything but the commercial recommended soap with a certain percentage of antibacterial for DH, but I'm healthy and will try this for myself.

 

[valmom]

Yep, we've discovered this one, too. The only problem we've found in the long run is that the pump dispensers aren't very sturdy or long lasting. (well, one tends to last us a year or so before breaking). We went to find foaming dispensers to replace ours a few months ago and noticed many fewer choices than there once were. Maybe the soap companies are catching on to the fact that many of us refill them

 

[Wildsky]

Yep, we've discovered this one, too. The only problem we've found in the long run is that the pump dispensers aren't very sturdy or long lasting. (well, one tends to last us a year or so before breaking). We went to find foaming dispensers to replace ours a few months ago and noticed many fewer choices than there once were. Maybe the soap companies are catching on to the fact that many of us refill them

you can probably buy the foaming pump thing by itself, perhaps pricey but it will last longer.

I've seen them at a soap supply place on line (I think its called WHolesale supply or something similar) then you can buy the plain ol soap liquid base if you like as well

 

[fosterchick]

I bought my pump at a junk store for $.50. The bottle has the marks on the outside of it. this way I don't have to count or eye the measurments. We have been using it for 2 years now. I love it. I do buy bubble bath for the soap to refill

 

[moolie]

Great idea-I'll give it a try.
I have a cheap foaming dispenser from WalMart with a jug of refill. Soon as that's empty I'll switch.

I'm a little leery about anything but the commercial recommended soap with a certain percentage of antibacterial for DH, but I'm healthy and will try this for myself.

Any particular reason your DH needs anti-bacterial soap?

There have been many studies that show that anti-bacterial cleansers don't remove any more bacteria from hands than when the proper washing technique is used with regular soap and water.

(As an aside, water temperature also has no bearing on how clean your hands get--I love hot water for washing and showering and learned years ago that it makes no difference to personal cleanliness, although it does make a difference with laundry).

Anti-bacterials also contribute to the super-bugs in your sink drain (anti-bacterials like triclosan only kill some of the bacteria, especially when diluted with water, and then make the rest more resistant to them).