The Cheapest Thing in Your Bathroom Isn't the One With the Lowest Price

First, Tuesday

If you opened an email from us on Tuesday night and found nothing in it, you weren't imagining it. A bit of code that came along with the design hid the whole thing, and we didn't catch it. That's small business: you test everything, and one tiny thing still gets through. We've changed how we build our emails so it won't happen again.

What that email was trying to say is worth saying properly, so here it is.

Look Past The Price Tag

Everyone's looking for places to spend less at the moment. Skincare is one of the easiest, as long as you look at it the right way.

The price on the shelf only tells you what something costs today. What it really costs depends on how long it lasts, what's in it, and how many other things you need to buy to make up for it.

That last one is the one people forget.

What It Actually Costs Per Wash

The fairest way to compare skincare is by the wash, not by the price on the box. So here's our range, worked out the way you'd actually use it at home, next to what you'd find on a pharmacy shelf.

Start with the face. Used as a face cleanser, one bar of our Pink Clay gives you around 500 washes. That's about 3c a wash, and roughly eight months from one $14.95 bar. A popular pharmacy foaming cleanser is $17.49 for 236ml, which at a pump or two a wash works out at around 15c each. That's five times the price per wash, and it's mostly water in a plastic bottle. Over a year, washing morning and night, it's about $22 on Pink Clay against $80 to $110 on a bottled cleanser.

Now the body. On price alone, a bar of Olive Castile costs about the same per shower as a pump of body lotion. The difference is that our bars keep all their glycerin, so your skin doesn't come out of the shower tight and asking for help. Most of our customers find they stop buying body moisturiser altogether. The bar costs about the same as the lotion it replaces, and you only buy one thing instead of two.

Then there's everything else that tends to pile up. A serum. A toner. A night cream. Somewhere along the way, washing your face turned into ten steps and a shelf full of bottles.

One honest caveat: these numbers depend on how you use it. Use Pink Clay on your body too, or share a bar, and it will go quicker. And like all our soaps, a bar lasts longest when it dries out properly between washes. Keep it on a dish that drains, out of the stream of the shower, or pop it in a Cotton Soap Saver ($8.95) and hang it up to dry. It keeps the bar out of the puddle, and when it gets down to the last sliver you can keep using it until it's gone.

Pharmacy prices from Chemist Warehouse, 16 October 2026. Per-wash figures are approximate and assume about 2ml of liquid face cleanser and 5ml of hand and body wash a wash, 5 to 10ml of body lotion each time, and about 6g of Soap Flakes a load.

How Long Does A Bar Actually Last?

This is the question we get asked most, and the honest answer is: it depends who's in your shower.

For one person, washing every day and letting the bar dry between uses, a bar of our soap lasts two to four weeks on the body. Share it with the family, or use it on your face, body and hair, and it'll go faster.

And then there are the people who get through a bar in a few days. I live with one. I don't know what he's doing in there and I've stopped asking.

The reason our bars last is how they're made. We cold process slowly and cure our soap for weeks, so the bar is dense and firm. The one thing that shortens its life is water, which is why a dish that drains or a soap saver makes such a difference.

You Can Probably Skip The Moisturiser

So why don't you need the lotion?

Glycerin forms naturally when soap is made. It's a humectant, which means it draws water into your skin and holds it there. In a lot of factory soap, the glycerin is taken out and sold separately. We cold process slowly, so all of it stays in the bar.

That's why your skin doesn't feel tight when you step out of the shower. If your skin is very dry, a couple of drops of plant oil on damp skin is usually all it takes.

If your soap leaves your skin tight, you end up buying something to fix it. Then something else for your face, and something else again because the first thing made you break out. A good soap means you can skip a few of those steps.

The cheapest moisturiser is the one you don't need to buy.

The Email You Didn't See: Pink Clay

Pink Clay was Tuesday's tip, and it's the star of that table. Turn a box over and read the back: macadamia oil, Australian kaolin clay, cedarwood and lemongrass essential oils. And all the glycerin, left in. (If you want the long version, here's everything that's in it.)

Read that list on a jar at a beauty counter and you'd blink twice at the price. Not because it's high, but because it's $14.95. It's one bar for your face and your body, and it gently exfoliates every time you use it.

It's not expensive soap. It's cheap skincare.

And this month, every Pink Clay bar sends $1 to Breast Cancer Network Australia.

Buy It Bigger

If you already know what you like, buying in bulk is the simplest saving we offer.

• Olive Castile Bulk Soap: 1kg, ten bars, for $84.95. That's $8.50 a bar instead of $9.95, with less packaging.
• Olive Castile Hand & Body Wash refills: keep your bottle and refill it. The 2L refill is $79.95, against $107.80 for four 500ml bottles.
• 5 litres: the Olive Castile 5L is $169.95, about $100 less than buying the same amount in 500ml bottles.

The One That Lasts And Lasts: Soap Flakes

Our Soap Flakes are made from the off-cuts of our bars, so nothing we make goes to waste. A 1kg box is $34.95. That can look like a lot for washing powder until you see how long it lasts: around 165 loads, or about 21c a wash.

• Laundry: about a tablespoon a load, which is roughly a handful. I just chuck a handful straight into the main compartment. If you're only using flakes, run a long wash.
• Cleaning paste: mix half flakes and half hot water, let it dissolve, and you've got a paste for the kitchen and the bathroom. Same box, no extra bottle.

One box does the laundry and the cleaning, and it keeps going.

So, Is It Expensive?

Only if you stop at the price tag. Count the washes, and count the bottles you don't need to buy any more, and it's one of the cheapest things in your bathroom.

And that's the part that makes me proudest. Real plant oils, all the glycerin left in, Australian-made right here in Melbourne, and wash for wash it still costs less than the bottles on the pharmacy shelf. Good ingredients and good value aren't supposed to come in the same box. Ours do.