A Little Dollop Will Do Ya

                 Kiddo has announced that she needs (yet another) bottle of shower gel/shampoo.  It feels like she's going through it really quickly, but we can't guide her too much, as she takes her baths alone, now that she's old enough to not drown.  I totally agree that she is fine to take a bath alone, but if she's through that giant bottle already, she's using way too much product.  She insisted that she needed extra some times, because she got totally sweaty.  I'm going to just stand up and say it now.  If you're itchy a lot of the time, and your hair seems weighed down, and your skin feels scaly, there is a good chance you are using too much soap and shampoo.

                Most soap is pretty concentrated.  If you use a washcloth or bath pouf, apply a quarter-sized dollop, and that should cover you nicely while still being rinsable.  At least start with that.  Same thing with your hair.  I use a bit more, as my hair is now past my waist.  It'll make your shower safer, too, as there won't be slippery excess soap everywhere.

                A long time ago, I was working wardrobe for a summer theatre.  One of the actresses was a European who had come to the States for college.  She took me aside in the first week and requested that we not wash her costume pieces with the rest of the cast's laundry.  I explained that I couldn't always make that happen, but I would do what I could.  What was her reasoning?  She explained that she was very sensitive to the detergent that hadn't rinsed out, but that she didn't want her cast mates to feel that they weren't wearing clean clothes.  Having spent several years with really soft water, I knew that the clothes would get clean anyway.  I told her I would make it work.  I used half to a quarter of the recommended serving of detergent for the whole summer.  No one noticed or cared.  Everything came out clean anyway.

                If you cloth diaper, one of the first things you will be advised is to use only half the recommended amount of detergent.  Too much soap that isn't rinsed out will affect the absorbency of the diapers and possibly irritate tiny bottoms.  I got back into the half-detergent habit after Kiddo was born, and I never really got out of it.  If you look at the cup that comes with your bottle of detergent, you might be surprised to see how low the suggestion line really is.  As the stuff has become more concentrated, the amount needed has gotten lower and lower.  They keep the big cup because that's what fits over the spout and also, people who use too much stuff buy more of it faster.  Read the back of the bottle of your shower gel, hand soap, dish soap, laundry detergent, etc.  You'd be amazed how little of the stuff actually does the job.  That's why your mother could always add a little water to stretch it out to shopping day without anyone dying.

                Also?  Liquid fabric softener does not love you or your clothes.  It coats the fibers of your fabrics, eventually making them stiff or weird.  The scent is hugely irritating to a lot of people in your life, and it's a throwback to when detergents were harsher.  If you buy cotton towels for their absorbency and then use fabric softener, you are working against yourself.  Soak them in some vinegar to strip all that out and then separate yourself from that creepy bear.  There's a reason you never see liquid fabric softener in professional wardrobe rooms.  Stop ruining your clothes with unnecessary stuff.  Your clothes do not need lotion.  I admit to using a dryer sheet when static cling will be a massive problem, but I fell out of the habit when cloth diapering ten years ago.  My thrifty mother used the same sheet for multiple loads, as it didn't all get used up in the first one, and many cheapskate manuals suggest cutting them in half.  If you don't have any, run a wire hanger up and down the piece--that kills off most of the static.  Also, hang the worst static offenders to dry, and you don't have to have any of this fight.  We use dryer sheets so rarely that we are still using the box I bought on sale right before we started cloth diapering Kiddo a decade ago. 

                In conclusion?  Use less soap, and check if you're still getting the job done.  I bet you are.