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Save On Cleaning Products By Buying Refills.
By thomas | September 4, 2007
Here’s a tip that was sitting right in front of my face for months before I figured it out: buy refills.
Most cleaning products in Japan are sold in two styles: normal and refill. Not surprisingly, the refill is usually cheaper. A normal bottle of Joy dish soap, pictured at far left costs me 148 yen. The refill bottle has almost twice as much soap but only costs 248 yen. Not huge savings, but every little bit helps. I get an even better deal on my Bath Magiclean. A normal bottle sells for 312 yen. The refill, which contains almost the same amount of cleaner, costs 148 yen. That’s less than half price!
With the plethora of single-purpose cleaners that exist here in Japan, it can cost a pretty penny to keep your house clean. Buying refills can easily save you a few 1000 yen bills a year. Refill packages also tend to be smaller, so they take up less space in your trash/recycle bin.
The word to look for is tsumekaeyou (つめかえ用, [つめかえよう]), literally “for refill”. Most stores stock the refills right next to the normal bottles, but this isn’t always the case. If you can’t find it after a quick search, find an employee and they should be able to bring you right to it. Talking to store employees is a fun way to practice your Japanese too.
Note: As the name suggests, you will have to have an empty bottle at home to pour the contents of the refill into. If it’s your first trip to the store, buy a normal bottle.
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September 6th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Great website idea! I thought about trying to make a website to explain how to live in Japan cheaply while I was a student last year… but never got around to it. Good work!
Looking forward to see how this develops!
September 10th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Harvey: Thanks for the encouragement! I hope the site will be interesting and useful to you. I have some more articles coming up later this week, but I was sorta sidetracked by the birth of my firstborn over the weekend. :) Your sites are great also! Peace.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Hi thomas,
Great idea of a blog, and thanks for the link in the cheese article!
Another tip for saving on Bath Magiclean is to find an equivalent own-brand, but for that one you have to check that the — whatever the active ingredient is — is the right percentage, as the lower percentage products are pretty useless. Magiclean has 8% or 9% on the label, so get an own-brand with 8%; the 4% stuff doesn’t cut it. We buy - what do we buy? I forget, but it’s from Konan and about 85 yen a bottle. Even though we don’t have a car, we go once every two months or so to the nearest DIY/Home Centre superstore and fill up two or three big trolleys-worth of household stuff, and even with the trains and 800 yen delivery cost we save money (and time, of course!) over the local stores.
Shampoo and body soap, etc, also comes in refills so you don’t have to keep buying the pump-action bottles.
September 30th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Ken Y-N: Thanks for the tip! I already went to the store and checked it out. Once I can get some pictures taken I’ll post a cleaning supplies update. And thanks for the link back in your September news recap!
October 6th, 2007 at 6:13 am
[…] Save On Cleaning Products By Buying Refills. […]
December 24th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Don’t forget to buy refills for your body soap, shampoo and rinse!
March 27th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I’ve actually been thinking about implementing the same practices in my home and residential cleaning business. Great thoughts and thank you for the helpful information.