Fuel for Thought

Living Between Showers

Linda at It’s a Teams Life blog has been experimenting with essential oils and homemade toiletries. My limited selection of stuff is mostly ready-made specialty products. This is my list of staple items that help between showers and keeping clean in general. Number one on the list and the most used are good old baby wipes. Unscented is preferred, and I buy it in bulk. The generic brands are hit and miss on the smell of the unscented models, so I usually stick to the major names. Target’s Up & Up brand works and can cost less than buying bulk from the warehouse clubs. For a regular washing-with-water soap, I use Dr Bronner’s with the addition of grapefruit seed extract. About 15-20 drops of the extract to 12 oz. of soap gives the soap antimicrobial properties. If my skin gets ichy after a shower, I’ve added too much of the GSE. The label on the Dr. Bronner’s bottle is also good reading. Give yourself a half hour to read the label. The other two products are from No-Rinse. No-Rinse is like Tang; if it’s good enough for the space program, it’s good enough for me. The body wash and shampoo are good for camping, too. Sometimes I’ll add the soap to the baby wipes for extra cleaning power, and then I’ll use another wipe as a rinse. Don’t confuse the Body Bath with the Body Wash. They both work and are probably the same soap, except the Bath is concentrated and must be diluted in water first. The shampoo goes directly on the hair. Work it in and use a clean wash cloth to towel off the excess. Many people will not like how the shampoo leaves the hair matted. It feels like wearing greasy kid’s stuff—at least it’s better than nothing. Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of campfire smoke. Wood smoke goes a looong way.

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