One Step Forward for Hygiene, One Step Back for Finances

I have a weakness -- a big weakness -- for fancy soaps. My dermatologist has recommended that, given the amount of housework I do, my propensity for handwashing and the resulting state of my hands, I should use only the gentlest, fragrance free soaps. (Did you know that one can come down with a condition called "housewife's eczema" from overexposure to soaps and household cleaners?) But I'm powerless over organic, plant-based soaps scented with essential oils. I love luxuriating in soaps that smell of lavender and lemongrass and patchouli and mandarin orange and chocolate mint. I'd rather give my itchy, cracked hands periodic doses of prescription steroids than give up this little indulgence.

The problem is that, not only do these soaps cost about a million dollars a bottle (or a bar), they are sold only (in our area at least) at Whole Foods. And while I'm admittedly powerless in the face of those glittering, gem-like displays of soap, I'm also powerless in the face of thousands of their other products: from cornmeal crust pizzas to lemon poppyseed loaf to butternut squash ravioli to orange oil cleaning spray. This makes it difficult to escape from Whole Foods without decimating our grocery budget and doing serious harm to our checking account.

I've been avoiding Whole Foods and its seductive array of upscale merchandise recently because we simply don't have the money to shop there anymore. But I do still have a secret stash of soap stockpiled for my own personal emergency use.

My son, unlike me, is averse to washing his hands. Well, that's not entirely true; he's happy to splash around in a pool or a bathtub or run his hands under the tap in the tub, but he does not like sinks. I've been trying to pinpoint what it is that he dislikes about the sink so we can move his hands away from their current state as germ farms. I've tried asking what he doesn't like and what would make it easier. I've tried using Purell, so that he doesn't have to put his hands under running water. I've tried reminding him that horrific illnesses like his recent stomach virus are more easily prevented with handwashing. I've tried experimenting with the water temperature to ensure it is as comfortable as bath water. I've tried various methods of ensuring that his shirt does not get wet while simultaneously ensuring that the skin on his arms does not feel air or see the light of day. Everything has led to the same meltdowns.

Last week, we ran out of bar soap and my husband, needing to take a shower, found and raided my stash of fancy soap. So, when I went to give the kids a bath, there was a bottle of my Nature's Gate Organics Lemongrass and Clary Sage Liquid Soap sitting on the side of the tub. "Oo," my daughter squealed, "What's this?" and squirted some on her hands. "Mm! It smells lemony!" she exclaimed. "Let me try!" my son said, grabbing the bottle. He squirted and sniffed, "Yeah! It smells good! Lemony orangy!" Squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt. He covered his hands with a thick layer of soap from fingertip to wrist and rubbed. Then he sniffed his thickly lathered hands again, "Mmmm!" He had a look of pure bliss on his face. He rinsed his hands and repeated the process. The bathwater was bubbly with expensive, organic soap, and he was washing his hands again and again.

The next day, after he used the bathroom, I asked him if he wanted to wash his hands using Mama's lemony soap. "Yes!" he exclaimed. I brought him the bottle and he squirted away. ("I have to use lots of it," he told me.) He washed his hands, rinsed them and dried them, then held them up to his nose and took a deep sniff. "Mmmm!" I guess it's time to start finding money in the budget for fancy soaps. Like mother, like son after all.