Over on my Facebook account, I have been sharing a frugal tip every Tuesday. My theory being that none of us can suddenly start adding every frugal behavior all at once, so in our family, we have a goal of adding one frugal habit per week.
Frugal is especially about saving money, but it is also about recycling, re-purposing, green living, using every last drop of some product (often how to GET TO every last drop of a product from its packaging).
This week, I share what we have done to remix and use old dried up deodorants.
We collected underarm deodorants from every suitcase, overnight bag, bags packed to go to the hospital with Mama and Unc, etc. It was quite an education to discover how many old containers of deodorant were pushed into the back of a drawer or a cabinet before it was even used up...probably because a new variety was bought with a better smell, etc.
Actually, we had about double the quantity of containers that you see here, but the first batch of this remixed deodorant we tried, the empty containers were thrown away.
I doubt I am the only woman who has a husband with very finicky underarms. We went through many varieties to find the deodorant with the right texture...and the right smell...and the right performance. I'll just say the childhood book "Princess and the Pea" comes to mind in relation to finding the perfect deodorant that made hubby happy! LOL
So, after finding and collecting literally several dozen containers of "too dry", "too sticky", "not strong enough" and "don't like the smell" varieties from around the farm, I just could NOT throw out all of this deodorant for which we had paid good money!
You may remember that we are on a long, long journey of gathering like things together from Grandma's house, from our quarters in the studio, from the boxes of our short time in Texas, from upstairs in the farmhouse, from the bathrooms downstairs in the farmhouse, from ALLLLL the suitcases and overnight bags in which I kept a complete set of toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, shampoo, etc...ready to roll at a moment's notice!
How I did this: start by removing all the remnants of deodorant. I even took a knife to remove the smidgen of deodorant in the nooks and crannies of the packaging.
This deodorant was dried and not usable in its dehydrated form, so I added some basic hand lotion to the crumbled mixture. Besides, hubby is picky about his underarm deodorant being a moist cream.
From there, without even mixing it up or trying to crumble the globs of dried deodorant, I put the bowl in the microwave for 90 seconds.
Here is where I don't have any pictures to show you because geeky hubby was getting pictures off the full camera card, and he took time to download two new programs to try out some new software for removing images from that type of digital image card. Gotta love Uber Geeks! LOL
The bowl came out of the microwave with the deodorant all melted...like a thin cake batter. A few lumps needed to be cut up with my spoon, and they melted too. I stirred it so the handcream would be blended into the mixture.
Then I decided it was going to be too moist and would not solidify as it cooled. I added some baking soda to thicken the mixture to a muffin mix consistency. This would have been a cool picture because the baking soda was bubbling.
My grandmother used baking soda dusted under her arms all of her life...before the days of stores with long aisles of hundreds of choices of deodorant...so I felt safe in adding baking soda to thicken the mixture.
Then I spooned the mixture into the large deodorant applicators with the push up thingy rolled all the way to the bottom. The mixture bubbled over on a couple of the containers until I learned to not fill it to the very very top.
I had enough remnant deodorant to fill four large containers and top off the one we had been using (the red one in the picture). Then I put the rest in an old empty scented lotion container.
I will use from that container because hubby has a "thing" about putting his fingers into anything that is creamy or wet. Don't ask me...I have no idea why. If I ask him to apply lotion to an area I cannot reach, he uses one finger, not his whole hand. Same thing with massage oil. Men are such funny creatures!
So, this is what we "saved" from the old, dried up deodorant containers in the first picture. Amazing, huh? It smells good. It is creamy enough for hubby's tender, finicky pits. We essentially spent NO MONEY in creating four large deodorant containers, top off another one, plus fill an old hand cream container...probably equivalent to two more large deodorant containers.
The first "test" batch made about this much also. If you have some improvements I can make to this frugal practice, please share!!!
After we use this up, I want to find a more natural, long lasting, cost efficient deodorant. Any suggestions?
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