Mrs. Meyer's Hand Soap on a Budget

It is accurate to say that I am a lover of all things beautiful, and often times this proves to be an issue when it comes to being frugal. I am always the one to justify spending $13 on the pretty floral notebooks instead of $0.50 on the plain-jane spiral notebooks. I simply can't help it. Every fiber of my being loves pretty things, and to be honest I get a lot of joy from simple pretty things. 

Naturally, I also find that lovely scents also bring me great joy. Our apartment is literally filled with candles, Scentsys, and my simmering potpourri concoctions. So it will come of no surprise to you when I say that I l o v e Mrs. Meyer's hand soap. But, being newlyweds, while still in college calls for an awful lot of frugal living. When we are only able to spend $1800 a month including city rent and bills, there isn't much room for splurging on the "pretty" things. But I will happily accept the challenge of finding ways to "splurge" on the things I love while still keeping within our monthly budget. 

The easiest way to get my Mrs. Meyer's hand soap without spending over our budget was to make my own. I've seen several recipes on Pinterest for how to make 1 bar of hand soap into 1 gallon of hand soap, so I decided I would give it a try. First off though, I didn't want to make an entire gallon of soap because we only have two soap dispensers in our apartment, and having a gallon of soap lying around  would only take up valuable storage space, so I improvised in order to make my own recipe for 1 bottle (12 oz.) of hand soap. 

Here is my recipe: 

1/8 bar of hand soap

2 cups of water

2 tsp glycerine (this is a rough estimate, I sort of eyeballed it.)

Directions: 

1. Grate soap. 

2. Boil water

3. Add soap shavings 

4. After the soap has melted in the water, reduce heat to a simmer and add glycerine. 

5. Stir

6. Let rest for 2 hours

7. Add to soap dispenser. *note: you may need to stir the soap once more.

Honestly this is one of the easiest things to do, I feel silly trying to come up with directions because I hardly believe you can mess this up. 

After dividing the costs, my bottle of Mrs. Meyer's hand soap comes to less than $1 to make, so I was quite pleased and this is definitely something I will continue to make. 

Do you have any special ways to "splurge" without breaking your budget? I would love to hear about them! 

Always, 

Alicia