Waste Not, Want Not

So here's a product I use:

I really like this stuff. It's a microbead scrub that I really feel makes a difference in my skin. It's gentle enough that I can use it every day, it has a nice smell, and it's not a terribly expensive product. As a matter of fact, it's really a bit of a bargain (you can click the photo to get some for yourself) at $5.99 a tube. But. The packaging...

Ooooooh, I really think there may be a special circle of hell just for packaging designers. We've all struggled with this kind of tube, right? It's very rigid plastic that squeezes down pretty successfully until you get to the bottom where it attaches to the nozzle thingie. At which point, you just can't smash it any smaller without mighty exertions and contortions, and when I'm standing in the shower with wet hands it becomes next to impossible. Usually I just get fed up & throw the thing away, even though I suspect there are several more applications of whatever product is in there, but I start thinking, "Oh, it's just not worth it!" and give up. What's even worse, the plastic of this particular tube is somewhat transparent, so I didn't just suspect that there was a good deal left in that tube, I could see it. Which really grated my cheese.

Now. This may seem extremely silly: fussing over a few dollops of a $6 product while my closet is stocked with shoes that in some cases cost more than my rent. But the waste of it really ticks me off. And even worse than that is the feeling that the company is trying to play me: they put 5 ounces of product in that tube, but they know I can't use all of them, so I'm going to have to buy another tube that much faster. Grrrrr...

Well, I showed them!

I marched that bad boy into the kitchen and whipped out my trusty kitchen shears, cut off the top and along the sides



And scooped all of the leftover scrub out of there with my skinniest spatula. (Be careful if you do this -- the cut edges of that plastic were sharp.)

Victory!

How much did I get? This much:


1.25 ounces. Yep. Fully 25% of the product I had purchased that I would have otherwise had to toss into the bin. I'm pretty sure this is going to get me through another two to three weeks of face scrubbin'.

While we're on the subject of product sizes & packaging, you know what else bugs me? Nail polish. I don't believe I have ever gotten through more than half a bottle of nail polish before it turned too hopelessly goopy to use, even with judiciously added drops of remover used as thinner. Why don't they make the bottles half as big and charge us half as much? (What a silly question, I know.) Honestly, even if they didn't lower the price, I'd probably feel better about it just because I didn't throw half of it away -- I'd feel that I was at least getting to use what I'd paid for.

So how about you guys? What's your pet packaging peeve?

Photos: Beauty.com, Style Spy