Selfsufficientish.com

Good afternoon all. I have just bought from a well known supermarket locally two bottles of good quality bath cream on a two-for-the-price-of-one special offer. It made me think of how I normally produce lots of shower gel for fewer pennies.

I tip out the contents of both bottles and then add cooled, boiled water in a proportion of at least 3 to 1. With a really thick bath cream, you can go for even more water and a thinner final solution. Mix well (I use a balloon whisk) decant into a well rinsed plastic bottle for storage of most of it, and then top up your hanging bottle or pump dispenser to go back to the shower cubicle.

If, like me, you've had teenagers going mad with huge dollops of the expensive stuff, you'll recoup your money in no time. Most of the major chains have regular BOGOF offers and in the past I have successfully used this treatment on Palmolive, Cussons and M & S etc.

I now usually have at least one bottle of full strength bath cream in store and this allows me to wait until a good bogof offer comes up. Hope this is of use to someone.

A good tip Paddys Mum, I may well do that with my bio stuff. I am nearly a SLS free bathroom, using biodegradable shampoos, natural soaps and shower/bath gel. It costs a little bit more but I tell the kids to use it wisely. Thinning it down sounds like a fantastic idea.

Thanks!

I always try to put a pump dispenser on to shampoo bottles to cut use - i also decant washing up liquid into a pump dispenser. I've recently discovered the joys of soap nuts too. Not only are they fab for washing but I also make up a solution with the soap nuts and add it half and half to shampoo, hand soap and washing up liquid, I add a fragrant oil where appropriate, and it does the job just as well

I've done this in the past with gifts of bath cremes (used as shower gel). Works well, saves me money & cuts down waste. All round winner methinks.

If you put it into a wall-mounted soap dispenser (the kind you find in public lavatories) you also save money as people don't dispense as much as they do when squeezing a big squashy bottle into their cupped hands.

But best of all is to wash yourselves with normal solid bars of soap - no plastic bottle, no plastic dispenser, no sodium laureth sulphate, no overusing, no waste, no mess.

You could even make your own.

Be careful adding water. Water stagnates, so it is likely to go off. I don't know if boiled/distilled water would work better...

If using supermarket stuff, it might not be such a problem, because they pack the bottles with preservatives, but with natural/homemade stuff, adding water can cause them to go off really quickly (i made this mistake with a bottle of shampoo once...came back two days later and it smelt horrible!!).

Normal bar soap tends to flare up my youngest offsprings eczema, so have experimented with numerous liquid shower gels etc. Found one that seems to work....it's available in a BATH CREME...so very much looking forward to trying the 3/1 method and dispensing it into the pump action for use in the shower. We seem to get through an enormous amount of shower gel as a family, so any saving would be of benefit...thanks for tip