A couple of years ago, Chris and I  took our family to Andros in the Bahamas for a mini-sabbatical.  The town we were in, Nicholl’s Town, was not touristy (at all), so we assimilated ourselves in with the locals, and had a month of coffee visits with new friends, snorkeling, reading and napping.  Best trip ever.

One of the best things about the trip was that we made some real friendships while we where there.  A German-Canadian woman, Karin, taught us this trick for keeping soap dry.  She had a manufactured magnetic soap holder by her sink from Germany. It was like this, only more attractive.  You can google “magnetized soap holders” if you want to shop for one.

I took this idea and  kind of made it work for the Lowcountry.  We’ve had it in our outdoor shower for a couple of years, and it dawned on me this week how to  do it simply in our indoor shower.

• 1 flat magnet
• Waterproof silicone adhesive
• Bottle caps
• Small nail
• Hammer

1. Take the nail and punch a hole in the center of the bottle cap. You’re going to push the bottle cap into your bar of soap and making a hole allows the air to be displaced when you do this. It just makes it easier to embed the cap.
2. Press the cap into the bar of soap. It doesn’t have to be flush with the soap, but get it close.
3. Take a bit of the silicone adhesive and put it on the magnet.
4. Attach the magnet to the top of your shower alcove or directly to the wall.
5. Once it dries, you can hang your soap on the magnet

Your soap will last forever and it never gets weirdly soft or dirty. I’ve been switching to plastic-free in our bathrooms for hand soap, body soap and shampoo. I have a couple of caveats though:

• I still put liquid soap in the hall bath and in the guest bathroom. It doesn’t get used very often, so there isn’t much waste, and I think that guests prefer using a liquid soap at someone else’s home (I know I do!).
• Each member of the family gets their own body soap.

That’s it! Five minutes to dry, non-yucky soap.

Kari