Soap saver aka soap shaker

I cann't stand rhe idea of buying soap in single use plastic bottles. So I only use bar soap. And am in the proxess of making my first batch of wood ash lye soap.

A soap bar is fine when washing hands or yourself. But washing dishes or lanudry isn't. The slippery thing escdpes all the time!

Then, out of sgeer luck, I found this item: a soap shaker! Just brilliant. Shake it in the water for ten seconds and you have sosp water!

For some reason, I only found sellers in Australia and New Zealand 🤔.

Another low tech soap saver idea is to put all the leftover bits from the ends of soapbars into a small drawstring bag that can hang over your tap.

It allows me to use up all the leftover slivers for handwashing small items of laundry without losing the bits of soap.

I hang a bag of soap scraps over the tap at the allotment too.

I use an old dishwashing bottle where I drop in these pesky remnants of soap bars.

I add water to cover and shake the bottle when I go to use it.

I keep a bottle by the washing machine, kitchen sink, and the bathroom sink.

That soap works wonders on greasy collars.  Greasy dishes or silverware, etc.

Maybe this could work? hand held camp toaster

EDIT: to fix link

Those soap savers were readily available in Australia up un til the 1980's I sold them in a Hardware store.
Somebody recently started manufacturing them.
Order them here

Anne Miller wrote:I use an old dishwashing bottle where I drop in these pesky remnants of soap bars.

I add water to cover and shake the bottle when I go to use it.

Great idea!

Edit: Since forever, I've been mixing down liquid dish soap to the concentration you would get in a sink of water. And then just using the little squirt I need, which rinses off neatly. Minimal waste of soap and fresh water.

Recently I've gone back to bar soaps for hand/body washing, in part because it's just easier on the skin, and in part because recycling of those fancy containers is now a dumpster fire (sometimes literally). Anne's method sits well with me; and those tiny soap bars under the sink will find a new home.

Kaarina Kreus wrote:   Then, out of sgeer luck, I found this item: a soap shaker! Just brilliant. Shake it in the water for ten seconds and you have sosp water! For some reason, I only found sellers in Australia and New Zealand 🤔.

WOW! That looks like something you would find in your camping equipment to use to fry hamburgers over a campfire.
And I actually found this on Amazon!    

These were very common in Australian homes. I still have my grandma's two, one in the kitchen and one in the laundry.

I use sunlight or velvet soap bars (the brand names here but any pure soap bar does the trick) - pure soap bars that have been around since the 1880s, also scrap soap pieces so nothing is wasted.

One tip grandma passed on was that when you have made your batches of soap, put them aside in a cupboard to harden so they last a much longer time than todays soaps that melt away too quickly. She used to have quite a few batches hardening and only started to use them after 6 or more  months. They lasted a long time.

Often the simplest things are the most useful and I think one of grandma's innovations that should be in every home today.

I have been so used to using these, it's been a case of 'familiarity breeds contempt', it never occurred to me to post on them, so I'm happy to see this thread start up.

Great reminder, Kaarina! We used a soap shaker for dishwashing in my childhood in Australia.

I Googled and found there are a few European sites also selling similar, seems they are used in The Netherlands. I might get one. :)

I take my wonderfully scented tiny soap shards and put them into a sachet bag (when they are dried out) then put them in my underwear drawer. All my undies & socks smell good, fresh clean scent. (Lavender, Tea Tree, Rosemary, Citrus) They last for months. Then I can melt them down and use them for hand soap in the bathroom.  Image:

Jesse Glessner wrote:

Kaarina Kreus wrote:   Then, out of sgeer luck, I found this item: a soap shaker! Just brilliant. Shake it in the water for ten seconds and you have sosp water! For some reason, I only found sellers in Australia and New Zealand 🤔.

WOW! That looks like something you would find in your camping equipment to use to fry hamburgers over a campfire.
And I actually found this on Amazon!    

Exactly what I was thinking of...I didn't realize folks used them for burgers, but for campfire toast.  I've also seen similar (typically rectangular rather than square) as "fish baskets" for cooking fillets over a fire or grill.

I thought the soap things were a bit smaller than the burger baskets, since we're talking about smallish pieces of soap? the ones i've seen (admittedly, a long time ago, back at an antiques place when i was in college) were quite small.

I imagine I'm not the only one who grew up with a slightly less elegant solution: soap dregs in an old knee-high stocking (or cut-off one), tied to the faucet?
That's what we do in our garden sink, although honestly we don't have many leftover soap dregs (my husband uses a scrubby towel thing in the shower and the last bits of soap end their days in it).