Huh? Those words came from one of my teenage sons – the one with the great imagination – in the bedroom down the hall one cold, winter night in January of 1992.

He quickly explained that when he got in bed at night, he could feel little pricks down his backside – probably as he curled up in bed – we didn’t really discussed the details that much.  What he had noticed was a direct result of changing the soap bar  in the shower. We learned in one short week that not all soap bars are created equal.

That was the week I began to find out that all products are not equal performers.  We were sort of cash poor in those days, and I tried to be as frugal as I could easily be with my household budget.  Already interested in healthier choices in eating and supplements, I was also aware that there were definitely healthier choices in household products – but I couldn’t afford them.  They could only be found from an MLM company which often had higher prices even considering they were more concentrated – or from the health food store which often had higher prices, and the poor performance didn’t justify consideration even if I felt I could afford them.  So 25 cent Ivory bars were in our shower. (Price seems to have doubled since then.*) As gentle as water on a baby’s skin, right? I believed that until my daughter later decided to shred several for a craft project; her little hands were red and raw before she finished.

That winter also found three of us in the family struggling with our chronic, Chicago winter related dry skin problems.  My daughter’s knuckles had cracked and bled each winter for three years, my middle son had split finger tips and my hands were like sand paper.  Money was spent on several lotions that made no difference, so we were not motivated to continue using them.

One Saturday morning, a friend called me to chat – once she found out that I could not find anything that helped our skin problems, it led to talking about where she shopped and how wonderful their hand lotion was . Open minded me wanted to test her information, so I set up an account with that company (kind of like joining Sam’s/Costco but for less money and no bulk buying), bought some things that were already on my “Wal-Mart list” – including that hand creme.

The rest is history.

Those three chronic skin problems were totally fixed in one week.  And I learned very quickly that not all affordable products are poor performers.  I also learned that healthier does not have to be more expensive. And I learned there is a better way to shop –  saving me time, money and easily contributing to environmental issues: less gas, less packaging, no fillers, no toxins, etc.

I just needed to change stores.

Twenty two years ago this month, I started doing almost all of my shopping from this manufacturer.  The products are better working, less expensive, safer for the family because the company figured out how to use natural ingredients and still sell for less than the name brand products on the store shelf. No brick and mortar building and depending on people to tell others, like I am telling you, saves billions of dollars.

So if you are somewhere in this crazy winter weather we are seeing – and the piranhas are biting you – please know that there are products that really, really do nourish the skin and solve that problem.

Choices matter!

* That soap bar that chased the piranhas away is still the same price it was in 1992.