I will have to buy some soap!
By Fleur
@Fleura (29276)
United Kingdom
October 5, 2021 4:30am CST
This may not sound particularly startling - but I haven’t had to buy any soap for more than ten years!
My mother died in 2011, and left a lot of stuff. One was a stockpile of cleaning products - she liked to make sure she had plenty of the types she preferred, so bought some whenever she found it on special offer. We have finally reached the end of the bars of hand soap. Still have plenty of kitchen soap though, as well as kitchen/bathroom cleaner.
I know plenty of people would just have thrown it all away, but why would you do that when you know it is something that will be used up in due course?
A friend who was moving house had a bag full of things she was throwing out, which included a still-wrapped bar of fancy soap, so of course I salvaged that as well - that’s the one in the picture. After that I will have to actually buy some!
All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.
14 people like this
12 responses
It's meant to be!
@Fleura (29276)
• United Kingdom
5 Oct 21
I've tried (with the girls) making new soap from the last bits of old bars. Other than that I haven't needed to so that's as far as I've got! Maybe will give it a go one day. We've made 'bath bombs' a few times. Really I want to have a go at hand-made paper.
@wilsongoddard (7291)
• United States
8 Oct 21
Like you, I would have kept the stuff. I dislike tossing perfectly good items; it is a waste both of money and of planetary resources.
I do tend toward stocking up. Of course, that tendency runs counter to being in a small apartment. I am really better suited to a much larger space. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem likely to happen for a while, and it certainly isn't happening here. While there are things that I like about this city, there are too many things that I really don't.
1 person likes this
@wilsongoddard (7291)
• United States
8 Oct 21
@Fleura In the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.
I do agree about the hoarding. I don't hoard; I just need more room to sprawl out in even if it is just one more bedroom/office. A one-bedroom apartment with two adults and two cats is pretty close quarters unless one truly does embrace an extremely spartan lifestyle.
1 person likes this
@allknowing (130292)
• India
5 Oct 21
@Fleura I have had soaps kept for a long time and I did notice they dried up.
1 person likes this
@Fleura (29276)
• United Kingdom
5 Oct 21
Expiry dates for cosmetics hadn't been brought in when these soaps were purchased LOL!
But soap doesn't go 'off'. At least ordinary shop-bought brands of soap don't, such as (in this case) Lux, Imperial Leather or Johnson's baby soap.
Fancier organic or hand-made soaps might, especially if they are made with natural oils and essential oils. They can lose their fragrance and eventually the oil may go rancid.
2 people like this
@Fleura (29276)
• United Kingdom
5 Oct 21
@allknowing Same here. Some of the soaps were decades old.
1 person likes this
@changjiangzhibin89 (16560)
• China
5 Oct 21
It is beyond me why your friend threw out that bar of fancy soap.I am amazed that you mother left you ten years' worth of soap.I guess some types of them are nowhere to be bought now.
1 person likes this
@changjiangzhibin89 (16560)
• China
6 Oct 21
@Fleura The manufacturers brainwash consumers into buying those liquid soap.
@Fleura (29276)
• United Kingdom
5 Oct 21
I don't understand why people throw perfectly good things away. But soap lasts a surprisingly long time - at least bars of soap do. When liquid soap came into fashion the manufacturers must have been laughing because they could charge about four times as much for about half the quantity!
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (326731)
• Rockingham, Australia
6 Oct 21
We helped a friend pack up her Mum's house and found bars of soap throughout any cupboards that held any sort of linen products - bedding, tablecloths, towels, etc. There must have been 20-odd bars of soap. We didn't throw them out either.
1 person likes this
@allen0187 (58444)
• Philippines
5 Oct 21
Might as well make full use of these items.
1 person likes this
@Tampa_girl7 (49286)
• United States
8 Oct 21
That was a blessing and good savings for you.
1 person likes this
@wolfgirl569 (96490)
• Marion, Ohio
5 Oct 21
I have not had to buy soap for a few years either for the same reason.
1 person likes this
@Fleura (29276)
• United Kingdom
5 Oct 21
No, soap doesn't go 'off'. At least ordinary shop-bought brands of soap don't, such as (in this case) Lux, Imperial Leather or Johnson's baby soap.
Fancier organic or hand-made soaps might, especially if they are made with natural oils and essential oils. They can lose their fragrance and eventually the oil may go rancid.
@merrybelle2021 (1389)
• Philippines
6 Oct 21
How about the kitchen soap, kitchen/bathroom cleaner, don't they expire or lose potency?
1 person likes this
