Last week I attended my son's school science fair. There were the usual exhibits, some really, really cool exhibits and a lot of exhibits that I learned from. Two in particular, I would like to share with you as it had to do with frugalness.
Exhibit #1 was on laundry detergent. I know that we have had several posts on laundry and detergents and all, but I thought this might be something you would be interested in still. The students were kind enough to get brand new white socks and then proceed to jump in our Island mud with them on. Anyone who has ever been to PEI knows how hard it is to get our mud out of white clothes. They used several different laundry detergents (Tide, Extra, Purex and Sunlight) to test getting the dirt out of the socks. Then, with the pictures of what the socks looked like before and the actual white socks after they were washed with each detergent, they presented the project.
Which one do you think worked best?
Made your choice?
Okay, so Tide and Extra tide for first place of cleanliness. AND Extra is WAY cheaper! They got it on sale and it worked out to about $0.05 a load. The tide was $0.13 a load. I asked them if that's the detergent their mom always uses and was informed that she always uses Purex and even after the experiment and the cheaper cost of the Extra detergent, she would stay with her brand. Interesting. I also asked them if they tried a homemade detergent, like the one we have mentioned here before or on this site where there are more recipes to try (If someone out there would like to conduct an experiment with all or some of the different homemade laundry soaps, I would be interested in them doing a guest post on here to present their results). They didn't even know you could make detergent, so it wasn't in the mix.
So there you go folks, if you are buying laundry detergent, Extra works equal to Tide and better than Sunlight or Purex. Frugal Lesson #1 learned at the science fair.
Exhibit #2 was on dishwashing soap, like for the sink, not the dishwasher just so we are clear. I can remember an old commercial where they had a sink full of soapy Sunlight water and a HUGE pile of dishes that spanned the entire counter. Their claim was it only took one sink load of water to wash all of these dishes because the soap stayed bubbly the entire time.
You see I don't have a dishwasher so I was VERY interested in seeing what these students had to present. Well, unless you count my husband or I. We alternate every night dishes and putting the children to bed. I don't let my children wash the dishes, because they just don't get as clean. They do get to dry from time to time though.
The student tested four detergents: Sunlight, Palmolive, Ivory, and another one that I can't remember the name of, some store brand type. The winner was the one that produced the most bubbles and that the bubbles lasted the longest. Which one would you think would be the winner?
Make your choice.
I was pleasantly surprised with the winner because its the kind I always use: Palmolive. (Which just for a humourous side note I thought you would like to know that until today, I thought it was called PARmolive! Just the way that I heard it in my head. I never really looked at the name I guess.) Frugal Lesson #2.
So now that you know these two new pieces of information, will it change the way you shop?
Enjoy your day!
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