Don’t Throw Out Your Soap Ends

Jumping off the body wash bandwagon to reunite with classic bars of soap comes with benefits for your wallet and the environment. But it also leaves you with a relatively small but still annoying problem: What to do with the little pieces left when you’re almost done with a bar.

One option is to turn multiple slivers into a “new” bar of soap — something that Lifehacker has covered in the past. But there are other possibilities, too. Here are a few more ways to use up the remnants of a bar of soap.

How to use up the final pieces of a bar of soap

Don’t even think about throwing those soap scraps away — especially if you splurged on a particularly nice bar. Try one of these other uses instead:

Keep your clothes smelling fresh

Rinse off the leftover pieces of soap, then leave them out to dry. Then place them at the bottom of a drawer where you keep clothes or linens, or in your suitcase when you travel. Put smaller scraps in a small mesh bag or piece of cheesecloth to keep them together.

Make liquid hand soap

You only need about one ounce of grated soap (roughly one-quarter of a bar) and some water to make your own liquid hand soap. Here are some directions.

Rub over zippers

Have a pair of jeans with a sticky zipper? Or maybe a suitcase that doesn’t zip up as smoothly as it used to? Rub a small piece of bar soap over the teeth of the zipper and it’ll be smooth sailing from there.

Keep your fingernails clean

Run your nails over a piece of leftover bar soap before working in the garden or garage to keep the dirt and grime out, and make cleaning your hands easier when you’re done.

Make a body scrub

Grate leftover soap ends, add some kosher salt (or any kind with slightly larger granules) and coconut oil, and you have a body scrub that exfoliates and gets you clean.