I believe in aging naturally, but if there's something that allows me to feel like I'm aging more gracefully, why not give it a try if the effort is small and there's nothing really to loose by it (mmm... per request from the Mr... other than money off course).
Hands? Really?
I never cared what my hands looked or felt like in my 20s because they felt like, can you guess? Normal hands... there was just nothing to compare it against. A decade later, I'm actually feeling the difference especially after washing lots of dishes. Normal morphed into what felt a little like 100 grit sandpaper. No more normal hands.
Light Bulb Moment
Surprisingly, one fine recent day, I realized my hands no longer felt like 100 grit sandpaper, they felt like normal hands again. What could it be? I have hand lotion from just about every place you can get it from. But I knew that couldn't be it since I never remember to apply hand lotion. My stats for putting on hand lotion is about once every 2 weeks at the best. It dawned on me to look at the soaps around the house because that is something I use on my hands everyday.
Here's what I found - In the bathroom we have Dr. Bronner's Castile Liquid Soap and 365 Whole Foods Foaming Hand Soap in the guest bathroom (we are in the process of switching it to Castile Soap but 1 gallon is a lot to go through first). In the kitchen we have Trader Joe's Mandarin Orange Next to Godliness Liquid Dish Soap and Environne Purely Essential Fruit and Vegetable Wash.
The BEEST Soap Discovery
Dr. Bronner's Organic Castile Liquid Soap, Lavender - 16 fl oz bottle
$10.79 from 25+ stores
Family soapmakers since 1858. Certified Fair Trade. Made with organic oils. 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottle! 2-3x more concentrated ...
The eventual switch to Castile Soap actually started for economical reasons. I used to buy method brand and Bath & Body Works liquid hand soap. I adored the scents from B&BW and really fell in love when they came out with the foam dispenser. The scents were a bonus but the ready foamed up soap sealed the deal. Yep my laziness is astounding. While happily using these soaps, the empty bottles started to accumulate. I recycled a bunch, then, one fine day some years ago, decided to see if I can make foamy dish soap using the empty bottles. I thought to my self wouldn't it be nice to have ready foamed up dish soap for the kitchen sponge and scrubber.
Oh snap, it worked! I got the same rich foamy consistency by pouring half an inch of liquid dish soap into the foam bottle dispenser and filling the rest with warm water and a good shake.
It shocked me though to see how little liquid dish soap it took!
My honeymoon period with B&BW soon ended. After using up the last bottles from our "doomsday" stock pile from some holiday sale (which still cost over 50 bucks) I haven't purchased another. I searched for a versatile liquid hand soap because the Mr. use it everyday to wash his face and saw something about how good Castile soap is. So I checked it out next time I was in the grocery story and loved how most of the ingredients were recognizable. We poured it into our used dispenser and can still dilute it with water for foamy experience that's gentle enough for the face. We are now on our second bottle and purchased a third for the guest bathroom when the 365 foam refill one is used up.
Onto Dish Soap
I continued to make foamy dish soap for years with whatever liquid dish soap was around. My go to brand was method or Meyers but last time when I needed dish soap, I was at Trader Joe's and picked up the Mandarin Orange on a whim. Our bigger sized kitchen foam soap dispenser broke after years of usage so I've been using this dish soap straight from the bottle.
There was less grease cutting power to this dish soap and at times I had to wash things twice to get that greasy feeling off of meat prep plates, cutting boards and surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, my hands. I checked the ingredients, never having cared about the ingredients in dish soap before and it was short and sweet.
The main ingredient is surfactants derived from coconut which isn't the best from the research I did but this was so gentle on my hands, better than any other liquid dish soaps plus no allergic reaction. The price is $3 per bottle. You can see the empty bottle from our kitchen. Since writing this post I've become obsessed soap ingredients because I feel it really can dry out "older" hands.
If you want to feel the difference in your hands as compared to using conventional liquid hand soap and dish soap, give this these awesome combos a try.
We are using some other brand of dish soap right now because I kept forgetting to get it at TJ's but finally bought a replacement bottle yesterday. I may switch to Castile Soap in the future because I had no idea it could be used for dish soap. Will keep you updated!
Wishing you all the BEEst!
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