Insane and Unheard of Ways to Save Money!!!

I know that this is so far mainly a vegetarian food blog, but there are two parts to my blog’s name. First “vegetarian” then “on the cheap”. And “on the cheap” will be the focus of this series. Saving money shopping wisely is only part of the battle. I remember living in Brooklyn a couple of years back, where it was a real pain to see how much of my tight budget was sucked up by toiletries. You know your shampoo, conditioner, moisturizers of all sorts, not to forget laundry detergents and a zillion cleaning products for around the house.
Because quite honestly, I might be a vegetarian, but I do want long, luscious hair, soft,nice smelling skin and clean clothes. Now I know what you are thinking - Here comes the rant about chemicals in cleaning products - and I will get to that at another time. But my focus here is more on budget than on health, at least for now.
So here comes the hook:

What would you say if I promised you to cut your expenses for Shampoo, Conditioner, moisturizer, hand soap, dishwashing detergent, laundry soap and a few others by 50%?
You do not have to buy anything, you can use the brands you love and already own, and you can start saving 50% in the next 2 minutes, or however long it takes you to read this post.

Here it goes: Take any form of soap (hand soap, laundry detergent or shampoo) you have in the house and look at the first ingredient. I bet you dollars to granola bars - it will be “ta-da” “Water”. Sometimes it will be labeled “purified”, “ionized” or my personal favorite “aqua”, like we could not figure out that that means water in Latin. So all you have to do is add more “aqua” and voila your shampoo is half the price. I know this sounds weird, but the added benefit besides the savings are that your shampoo will work better! And just so you know that this is not a typo - your shampoo, detergent, soap etc will work better, will be gentler on the skin, and gentler on the environment.
If you still do not believe that this works think of it this way. Would you ever goop your shampoo straight on your dry hair? Obviously not. So you wet your hair first, but you realize you could just wet the shampoo and get even better results!
My mom, who was a hairdresser when she was young always said that all our commercial soaps, and let’s face it that is what shampoo and all the other products mentioned really are - plain old soap - are way too concentrated. They dry out your scalp, leave way too much residue and don’t really clean all that well.
Now, somehow we have gotten used to the idea, that shampoo is supposed to be a thick gooey mess - and once you water it down it will be quite more runny - but just apply it directly to your hair and not first to your hands and you will not even notice.
Also, it helps to have two bottles. So here is how you do it:

When you run out of shampoo, keep your empty bottle - do not recycle it just yet.
When you buy your new shampoo you fill each bottle about half, top it off with water and stand it upside down - so it mixes well.
There you have it - two shampoos for the price of one. This works really well with shampoo, conditioner and to some extent with moisturizer. Depending on the brand you will have to experiment with the exact ratios. I personally think that the cheaper the soap the more you should dilute it. Milder shampoos already will have more water in them - that is what makes them mild!
I have tried this with “Kiss My Face”, “Jason”, “Mountain Ocean” and others.
So give it a try - tell me what you think…..