You tried it, you hated it. Now what?

Now that Wisconsin finally seems out winter, spring cleaning is upon us! While cleaning out my bathroom cabinets, I found several open bottles of health and beauty items that for one reason or another I no longer use. Throwing them away would be wasteful, both for the environment and for my checkbook. Here's a list of ways I've come up with to deal with these products:

Re-purpose it
-Mediocre conditioner works well as shaving cream. Be sure to rinse your skin well afterward. (I can't speak for whether it would work to shave your face, but it seems like it might clog pores.)
-Bar soap can be made into laundry detergent, if you're feeling adventurous. The Simple Dollar gave some detailed instructions recently. (You must check this out!)
-Liquid body wash makes great foaming hand soap, as I recently discussed.


Mix it
Combine a so-so product with a different brand (of the same type of product) can stretch the good one. I did this with a toner that left my skin feeling tacky. I mixed it with a different toner, and ended up with twice as much toner that I did like. Do a small amount of this at a time. You don't want to send good product after bad, and waste an entire bottle of something you really like.

I also used to do this frequently with nail polish. When a color lost it's appeal, I mixed it with other colors to create something one-of-a-kind and really fun.


Change the scent
Add some soap fragrance to liquid soap. This works best with lightly-fragranced soaps or by adding a compatible scent. As with mixing it, try this with a small amount before pouring an entire bottle of fragrance into something stinky. I last did this with a generic brand body wash, which smelled vaguely of toilet paper (kind of dusty, not bad, but not what I want my skin to smell like). I was able to cover that smell easily with citrus soap scent.


Pass it on
If there is nothing really wrong with the product, but you just didn't like it, there's no reason you can't give it to someone else. One caveat, be sure you know the person won't take offense. And offer the item in the right way. You don't want to come off as sounding like, "I can't stand this product, but it's good enough for you," or worse, "I thought you could use this anti-wrinkle cream." I'd stick to family and very close friends for this.


I hope the above tips help you clear out some cabinet space in your bathroom. Plus, you can act like a mad scientist, which is always fun.

Hi guys & gals...

I have to postpone my post for tonite, as my folks are over discussing some important matters that took place a few hours ago...I will actually be able to tell you about it in one of the next few posts, which will work out great for the blog! (It does have to do with MSG!) So until then...a hint at my next post:

here.

Vote with your dollar

Whether you think it will help the economy, or make things worse, you've got stimulus money coming. If you're planning on spending that money, spend it on things you believe in.

When it comes down to it, companies aren't going to do things that don't make them money. It's not a difficult concept, it's the foundation of capitalism. So if companies can make money by doing the right thing, they will. It doesn't make them evil (although greenwashing does).

With that knowledge, you have tremendous power to change the world with every dollar you spend. When you purchase anything, you are voting your support in that product, that company, and that company's policies. That doesn't mean you need to understand all the dealings of every company whose products you buy; it just means you should shop your values.

If you don't like the lack of standards and horrible human rights in products made in China, stop buying things made in China. If pesticides give you the creeps, buy organic. It's pretty simple, and it will have a change in the way companies run.

I've found an excellent resource on this topic, http://www.biggreenpurse.com/. It is geared primarily toward women, since according to the site women spend $.85 of every dollar in the marketplace. The site features info on how the power of your dollar can lead the environmental movement, and easy ways to shift your spending to greener options.

I'm especially fond of the Big Green Purse Shopping Principles :

1) Buy less.

2) Read the label.

3) Support sustainable standards.

4) Look for third-party verification.

5) Choose fewer ingredients.

6) Pick less packaging.

7) Buy local.

And I love the bottom line from that same link:

Ignore boasts that a product is eco-chic, earth-safe, or planet-neutral. Stick to the principles above to ensure that your Big Green Purse has the kind of big green impact that will make a difference both in the marketplace and on the environment.

That sounds like MSG if I've ever heard it!

Photo credit: http://www.garrisonphoto.org/sxc/

Make Your Own Foaming Soap

When you buy foaming soap you're paying for a lot of water and a foaming pump. So, if you've already purchased the pump, you may as well use it again (and again), by mixing foaming soap at home.

Step one, decide what kind of soap you'll be making. I make both hand soap and dish soap (think Dawn Direct Foam). After that, you need to get your hands on a foam pump. You can buy these through Pampered Chef or online, but I'd just buy a bottle of foam soap at the store and save the bottle. Or ask a friend for one, if it was just headed for the recycling bin.

Next, it just comes down to proportions.

For handsoap:
Start with one part liquid soap to about five parts water, and adjust until you get the consistency you like. Hand soap is a little more forgiving than dish soap. The best part is that you can use up all kinds of liquid soap leftovers. Bubble bath works great, as does any body wash that does not have any "bits" in it. You can also add soap scents to mix it up. I personally like to use a bit of Soft Soap style hand soap and a squirt of bubble bath.

For dishsoap:
This can get a little tricky, and will depend on what brand you use, as some are more concentrated. I use Palmolive, and put 1/2 ounce of soap with 12 ounces of water. If you use too much, the soap will clog the pump. Too little and it won't have any cleaning power. The dish soap is great for when you have just one dish you need to wash (for me, that's when I discover the pan I need to make dinner is dirty) and you don't want to use a lot of soap or water. Of course, you can use dish soap to make hand soap, too. In fact, it smells really nice and cleans well!

Once you've mastered your perfect proportions, use a marker to note how high to fill the soap. That way, you don't need to measure every time.

I'm sure you can guess why this project is MSG, but I'll give you the rundown anyway.
-Reduced packaging by not buying all those pumps
-Lessen the carbon footprint of your soap (imagine truckloads of single-use bottles of foam soap traveling across the country, and smile as you refill your bottle)
-Saves LOTS of money
-Use up small portions of soap that might otherwise go wasted
-Less trips to the store to buy soap = less temptation to consume

Pretty significant impact for one quick project!

Some Boredom Killers...

For my "Post-A-Day" kickoff, I'd like to give readers a few sites for enjoyment and/or discovery:

The Green Quiz

Just How Green Are You?

Measure Your Eco-Footprint.

Should You Buy CFLs if You Live in an Apartment?

Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) are a mainstay of articles both on living green and on saving money. But the high up-front cost can be hard to justify if you are only planning on staying someplace for a year.

Why pay more for CFL bulbs so the next tenant can reap your savings? (According to the Energy Star website, a CFL bulb saves $30 or more over its lifespan.) Of course, it’s the environmentally-friendly choice, but it’s not always possible to make the green choice when money is tight.

A clever solution is to purchase CFL bulbs, but keep the halogen bulbs. When you move, return all the halogen bulbs to the light fixtures, and take the CFL bulbs with you.

Alternately, if you move to another apartment, you can switch the halogen bulbs from your new place to the old. (I’d only do this if the old place had halogen bulbs when you moved in; otherwise it’s a down-grade and a bit of a rip-off for the landlord.)

When my husband and I moved into our first apartment, we replaced all of our bulbs with CFL bulbs. We moved five years later and took those bulbs with us. (Actually, we had far more CFL bulbs than we needed for our new place, and left several there.) It was another year before the first of the CFL’s finally burnt out.

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