Just Call Me MacGyver…

I have a product in my home that I love, but find myself resenting the fact that I have to buy a proprietary refill for it. How about you? (There are actually a few I can think of!)

It’s not so much that I mind having to buy the refills, it’s the exorbitant price I’m charged to do so. It’s at times like these when my hidden, inner MacGyver comes out.

So when I purchased a Lysol No-Touch soap dispenser for my children’s bathroom, I knew I had to stop the insanity of paying $5 for a new one each time we ran out.
Kids love the novelty of it, and we go through it fairly quickly. Plus, I’m not too hot about the ingredients in the Lysol soap; triclosan (a known carcinogen and cancer-causing agent) has no place in my home. So, I got creative and here’s what I came up with. (Note: I did this one year ago, but wanted to see if my hack had any ill effect on the dispenser before posting.)

Take your empty soap container out of the dispenser, then follow these three easy steps…

Step 1: Find rubber stoppers at your local hardware store. They should be somewhat pliable so you can insert them easily into the top of the soap bottle. I bought one that is about 3/4″ diameter on top, and it narrows in the middle and widens again at the bottom. It looks like this…

Step 2: Drill a hole in the top of your soap bottle. Choose your drill bit size based on the diameter of the rubber stopper you purchased in step 1. Since the top of the stopper is wider than than the bottom, I just held the drill bit up to the bottom and matched up the size that way.

Step 3: Fill your bottle with your (preferably eco-friendly) liquid soap of choice.

As mentioned above, this has been working for over a year now and it’s great! It allows me to use biodegradable soap (better for the environment and my family) and has saved me a LOT of money. And, because it’s got a secure stopper in the top, there are no accidental spills. Let me know if you make your own and feel free to post a blog link to your project if you do!