TV ads often give a false impression of how much of their product to use to get effective results. This is especially true of products like toothpaste, shampoo, soap and shaving cream. Sometimes companies mis-represent this for seemingly innocent reasons (eg. perhaps a shampoo model with richly lathered hair is more visually striking), but oftentimes it’s just business: if you use more, you’ll buy more.
Realistically, you can get the same benefits by using a lot less of a product than what most of us think is “normal”. Here are some quick guidelines:
- Toothpaste: Use enough to cover about half of the bristles on your brush.
- Shampoo: Use about a quarter-sized dose (less for short)
- Soap: Enough to create a gentle lather.
- Liquid Hand Soap: About a dime size dose. Here’s one to keep your eye on too…the pumps are designed to give you MUCH more than you really need if you give it a full pump (a little trick by the manufacturer to get you to use more). Just get what you need and let go!
- Shaving Cream: This is harder to average out since it depends on your hair and skin types. In general, though, it doesn’t need to be caked on. Yes, you should cover the area you’re shaving, but no need to go overboard!
If you’re concerned about getting properly clean, keep in mind that it’s the cleaning action itself–not the product–that does most of the actual cleaning (aka. brushing your teeth, massaging your scalp, scrubbing your body). More product or repeating the process does not make for cleaner teeth or hair.
If you’d like to read more, Frugal-cafe.com has a fun article about this that even has some commercial screenshots you may recognize.
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A LOZO expert posted this tip. |