Cleaning products: save from $25 a month to 40 cents. Grated, Ivory becomes Ivory Flakes, discontinued in 1978. I use a tablespoon in the washer. I use one bar over two weeks. Cost: 15 cents per week. I also use a wet bar to clean stains before they go in the wash. Eliminates stain pretreaters.
Want to clean counters?: Sinks? Bathtubs? Floors? Try some swished soap in very hot water. Use a scrubby pad to clean bathtubs or greasy build-up areas. Then wash down with damp cloth.
Body care: Ivory can be used for every bar soap in the house. Dilute shampoo in half. It's not the toothpaste that cleans teeth, it's the brushing. Use just a tad to freshen breath. One 6 oz. tube lasts 6 months that way.
Paper products: Don't buy them. All round the world people use cloth to clean. Use squares of flannel or old t-shirts for cloth TP. Handkerchiefs are for noses. Trees are for forests.
Savings so far: approximately $40 to a whopping $75 per month depending on how often you buy your cleaning and paper products and what brands you buy. Wouldn't you rather work one day less per month?
By Allison Dey from Tucson, AZ
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Ivory Flakes... Not to date myself but I wasn't doing my laundry in '78. What were they - a laundry detergent.
Alex - USA
Editor's Note: Hi Alex, Ivory Flakes was a laundry detergent made for baby clothes. It was basically flaked Ivory Soap.
I try to limit my use of paper towels, but would NEVER go back to using cloth handkerchiefs. Tissues are so much more sanitary. Also those cloth handkerchiefs and cleaning rags have to be laundered, using energy which we should conserve.
Hot water and bleach kills the germs so safe the trees.
Laundering cloth handkerchiefs and cleaning rags at home in your regular dirty wash makes much less of an impact on our planet than the energy it takes to harvest a renewable forest, transport the logs to a mill, run the mill to create usable lumber (which uses a tremendous amount of water), transport the lumber to factories and building supply stores, churn the tree into pulp, make paper out of the pulp, etc. By the time we've utilized these resources, we've burned off so much of natural gas and oil as well as used a great deal of water for milling.
I certainly don't mean to be argumentative, but it can't be said that washing handkerchiefs with a regular load of laundry is as great an impact on the environment as the process of making paper we don't need in the first place. And I meant it as a money saving idea - and it does save money. A few rags and cloths don't warrant their own laundry load so no extra money is spent there.
Another person reminded me that Ivory soap does contain animal fats and have been told Kirk's Castille soap is a good alternative to Ivory if a person doesn't want to use animal products.
Thanks! Didn't know they were not making that any more, the still have it listed in TONS of books to use for craft projects for kids. I was wondering why I couldn't find it! Will try flaking the bar soaps....
Wow.... you use a tablespoon of Ivory flakes as laundry detergent? That's all?
If so, that's amazing and I've got to do it.
Please be careful if you have respiratory/sinus problems; the grated soap is DUSTY and gets up your nose! My son still has reactions to the borax, so I switched to Shaklee Basic - L, it is more powerful than any sold in stores! There are no phosphates, borates, dyes to pollute or cause allergic reactions. 1 oz cleans a load of nasties! You can check them out at www.shaklee.com or email me at healthy_home101@hotmail.com with any other questions.
Kelly
When I was growing up we decorated the xmas tree with ivory flakes, it was such a tradition that my mom started. Any luck where I can find some.
YOU CAN FIND IT ON LINE, JUST GOOGLE IT TO GET INFO! I ALWAYS LOVED IVORY FLAKES, MY MOM USED IT IN OUR BABY CLOTHES!
Does anyone remember using ivory soap flakes and cornmeal as a facila scrub ? Let me know.
Ivory Soap flakes was discontinued in 1993. I wasn't born till 81' and my mom and I used it to make Christmas trees when I was a kid.
You can buy Dri-Pak Soap Flakes (made the same way Ivory used to make theirs) at www.dwellsmart.com/
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