So eventually I’m going to need hand soap/Lysol/toilet paper...how do I get it?

[Just Kate]

Pre-quarantine, I was one of those people who buys what I need when I need it. We don’t have much storage space in our house and I was always having to run into Walmart/Kroger for something. So far, we are doing okay, but eventually we will run out. What to do? I keep searching amazon, with no luck. I’ve done pickup at both Walmart and Kroger, and neither offer these items for pick up (maybe hand soap...I just thought about that one after placing my next Kroger order). Of course, we are trying not to run into a million stores, so what do we do?

Note to self, when this is all over, find extra space to start keeping extras of these essentials!

[BlsdMama]

That's precisely what I'm wondering.  Sigh.

[Sneezyone]

3 minutes ago, Just Kate said:

Pre-quarantine, I was one of those people who buys what I need when I need it. We don’t have much storage space in our house and I was always having to run into Walmart/Kroger for something. So far, we are doing okay, but eventually we will run out. What to do? I keep searching amazon, with no luck. I’ve done pickup at both Walmart and Kroger, and neither offer these items for pick up (maybe hand soap...I just thought about that one after placing my next Kroger order). Of course, we are trying not to run into a million stores, so what do we do?

Note to self, when this is all over, find extra space to start keeping extras of these essentials!

 

Can you search for soap recipes? You might be better off finding ingredients (glycerin, etc) than finding the real deal. I have had good luck with bar soap (I prefer that for my kids who might as well drink body wash) but that was three weeks ago.

[Night Elf]

What I plan to do is hit all the stores in my area early in the morning. Besides grocery stores, there are drug stores like CVS,  Rite Aid and Walgreens. There's Office Depot, Staples and Office Max. I'm okay for now but I'm like you, eventually I'll run out. I'm hoping by the time I do, some things will be back in the stores. We'll see. I don't want to hoard so I don't want to go out and get more right now but I may start looking during regular grocery runs.

[May]

Do you have a smaller hardware in your area? DH and I were in Ace Hardware and they had cleaning supplies there.

[MEmama]

Can you figure out ways to make your current supplies last longer while you look for replacements?

Dish soap can be watered down, most people can use much less laundry detergent (I don't use more than a tsp per load so a bottle lasts forever), if you have a foaming hand soap pump, the soap to water ratio is something like 1:3 (I can’t remember exactly but easy to figure out). That saves a LOT of soap!.

Cloth can be used for most women's bathroom needs. Wash counters with hot water instead of wipes (which none of use correctly for disinfecting anyway). Look around your house for ways to stretch, save, replace and make do. 

This is also a good time to break out a stash of hotel and travel sized toiletries, and those small tubes of toothpaste from every dentist visit. I have a basket full I’ve been saving for unknown reasons. Now is that reason, apparently. 
 

Edited April 6, 2020 by MEmama

[Carrie12345]

5 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

 

Can you search for soap recipes? You might be better off finding ingredients (glycerin, etc) than finding the real deal. I have had good luck with bar soap (I prefer that for my kids who might as well drink body wash) but that was three weeks ago.

I’d recommend going that route as early as possible, too. 
Each time a realization hits, alternative supplies are disappearing. Flour was impossible in my area for a while. Yeast just doesn’t exist. Elastic disappeared early on in mask making. Joanne’s canceled my fabric order because they went out of stock after I submitted. If soaps stay rare, I’d expect suppliers to be hit soon. (Brambleberry appears to be in fine shape as of this morning.)

If you have any local breweries, check to see if they’re converting. We have a brewery and soap store that are teaming up for sanitizing supplies.

[mom@shiloh]

I went to Walmart on Saturday. Trust me, I didn't want to. I had avoided all public places for the previous 16 days, but my dh developed a medical condition that necessitated me picking up a prescription for him. THEY HAD TOILET PAPER, which was funny to me because I've been trying to add it to my on line order for the last two weeks and they wouldn't let me. They had plenty in the store, but did limit it to one package per customer. I actually felt better about everything after shopping in the store. All the things that I had tried to add to my cart on line that they said were out of stock, were actually there at the store. I figured as long as I had already immersed myself in that germ-infested place, i was going to buy absolutely everything that I could think of. It felt like just a touch of normalcy. So, while I don't advocate going out unless you have to, you may be able to find the things you need if you're willing to go into the store. 

[DawnM]

I found TP at Walmart on Friday and at Target yesterday.  They only allow you to buy one bag of it, but they had it.  Walmart had a lot, Target had only a few.  

I have heard early morning is when you should go.  

[Ottakee]

Instead of Lysol wipes, you might be able to find the Lysol concentrate yellow liquid) and mix up your own spray using a spray bottle (usually found in plant /garden section).  Or check local hardware stores or restaurant supply stores.

In our area, the small local mom and pop stores have had TP, Kleenex, paper towels, etc more consistently than the big box stores.

[regentrude]

Hand soap? There's tons of bar soap available online and I didn't see a shortage in stores.

[Donna]

DH went first thing in the morning when Walmart opened and was able to get tp and a container of Clorox wipes on Thursday morning. It sells out very quickly.

[SebastianCat]

https://www.thesupplyfinder.com/ is a website I recently discovered that provides up-to-the-minute reports of where you can purchase hard-to-find supplies.  

We have had no problems finding kleenex, hand soap, or Lysol liquid this week at our regular grocery store.   I was able to order TP and paper towels online at Walmart.   Sams had cases of napkins last week.   If we absolutely run out of TP, we have enough napkins to use for a while (although they aren't flushable, but I'd prefer them to cloth).

This whole experience has made me so much more empathetic to people who live with food and supply shortages all the time.   

[Junie]

48 minutes ago, SebastianCat said:

https://www.thesupplyfinder.com/ is a website I recently discovered that provides up-to-the-minute reports of where you can purchase hard-to-find supplies.  

We have had no problems finding kleenex, hand soap, or Lysol liquid this week at our regular grocery store.   I was able to order TP and paper towels online at Walmart.   Sams had cases of napkins last week.   If we absolutely run out of TP, we have enough napkins to use for a while (although they aren't flushable, but I'd prefer them to cloth).

This whole experience has made me so much more empathetic to people who live with food and supply shortages all the time.   

This.  And more sympathetic to those who are poor and can't afford items that I have taken for granted.

[Sherry in OH]

I went shopping this morning.  

The store had toilet paper, not every brand, variety, or size, but a selection including name and store brands.  There has always been plenty of bar soap.  Today there were also bottles of liquid hand soap refills.    I don't know about Lysol specifically, but there seemed to be plenty of bleach and liquid cleaners.  

There were limits of one per customer for high demand items. 

[itsheresomewhere]

Costco has been having toilet paper when they open.  A lot of the stores here will have it when they open but gone within 1.5 hours.  I got disinfecting wipes at Costco last week for a neighbor.  Go early. Hand soap has become available again.  But you can melt bar soap down and refill your soap dispenser with it.  

[Just Kate]

Thanks everyone! I guess since we’ve been doing online ordering for pickup, I thought that many of these items were still out of stock (they haven’t been available for pick up). I did find a four pack of charmin available on amazon this morning but it cost $29.99! Crazy...

ETA: I live in an area with no Costco. Sad but true ☹️

Edited April 6, 2020 by Just Kate

[Spryte]

I found toilet paper on Amazon - the Presto brand.  It was a big package.

Amazon pantry has lots of hand soap, liquid and bars.

I’m having no luck on cleaning supplies, at all.  But I’m shopping online and trying to stay out of physical stores.

[mommyoffive]

I think everyone knows to hit the stores early at this point to try and get things.  And it is just so dependent on where you live.  That post of the huge stock of toilet paper has not been seen in my area for over a month.   I haven't been in stores for a month, but we stocked up on all personal things before that.  

[happypamama]

My husband got up early Saturday morning and hit four stores to find toilet paper.  I think three of them had a little.  We still don't have tons, due to limits, but we have enough for a couple of weeks.  This was after we went to four other stores Thursday night, and NONE of them had any.

 

I think you may just need to keep trying.  I was quite annoyed that we had to go to eight stores, thus exposing ourselves and everyone else that many more times.  I was very happy with WalMart pickup, but lately, I just can't get much of anything we need from there, so we still have to go to stores.

[MEmama]

8 minutes ago, Happymomof1 said:

Just Kate-  we couldn't online order, but hubby found tp and paper towels when he actually went there this morning.  I think you may just have to go out and get them. 

I tried and failed to order groceries online so I went out irl this morning instead. The store was almost fully stocked. I didn’t go down the paper aisle but they had soap and cleaners and I think I saw someone with paper towels.
I agree, you might have better luck just masking up and going out for essentials instead of trying to order them.

[Just Kate]

Thanks everyone! I guess I’ll be planning a trip to the store. Ugh!

[Pen]

1 hour ago, Spryte said:

I found toilet paper on Amazon - the Presto brand.  It was a big package.

Amazon pantry has lots of hand soap, liquid and bars.

I’m having no luck on cleaning supplies, at all.  But I’m shopping online and trying to stay out of physical stores.

 

This.

Regular soap and water can be used to clean most things. 

Online,  brands I never heard of for toilet paper seems to still be available  The one I got seems fine. 

water squeeze bottle can be helpful for a make-shift bidet to decrease TP need

If you can make your cleaners stretch by using mostly soap and water, I would think that sooner or later more “cleaner” should become available. 

 

[BlsdMama]

Lol, DD has four batches of real (sodium hydroxide / “lye”) cold process soap (sixteen pounds) if anyone needs/wants to buy soap and have it shipped. That said, my girls are great knitters and have had some amusing memes sent to them, but we are knitting TP for no one! 😉 LOL!

[sweet2ndchance]

If you don't want to use a water bottle, you can buy peribottles, like the hospital gives you after you have a baby, from a number of places online. Anywhere that sells home birth supplies and of course Amazon. I find a peribottle easier to aim where needed than any other kind of water bottle. If you have old tee shirts, they can be torn or cut into wipes to blot yourself dry after the peribottle. A spare small trash can with a lid or a large plastic ice cream bucket can be used to collect used cloth wipes. A basket or bucket can be used to hold clean wipes and the empty peribottle between uses. Personally, I wash the cloth wipes separately before I do a load of towels with just some bleach and then leave them in there to go through again with the towels with soap and bleach. I don't use dryer sheets on my towels or my wipes. When you rinse with a peribottle, not much gets on the wipes but I double wash with bleach just for extra assurance that they are clean after each use.

Our Walmart (nearest Kroger is 90 minutes away and nearest Costco is 5 hours away) has toilet paper but only if you get there not long after they open. By lunchtime, it is gone even in our rural area. They only have one brand and one size package but it can be had for a fairly reasonable price. They also have tons of handsoap of all kinds. I didn't notice the cleaner aisle since I make most of my own household cleaners.I only buy orange oil De-Solv-It type cleaner and Iron-Out on the cleaner aisle and I'm not out of either right now so I didn't have to go down there recently.

Hot soapy water or a weak bleach water solution works great on formica countertops. I've never had anything else so I can't say if it will damage other countertop materials.

[ElizabethB]

You can use shampoo as soap.

[TheReader]

I've seen hand soap in the store every time I've gone. Not hand sanitizer, but soap. That one should be easy. 

For Lysol or other cleaners, I've found our hardware stores to be much better stocked than grocery stores; people forget that they carry that stuff. We've found disinfectant cleaners there every time we've gone (still not the wipes, but plenty of sprays, etc.). 

Just today I found TP in relative abundance. For that, it seems that being out in the first hour for the public is helpful. It's starting to look like maybe the first couple of hours will be sufficient, even. 

Hope some of that helps! 

[stephanier.1765]

Walmart had soap and toilet paper this morning. I didn't look for Lyson but they did have counter disinfectant sprays (the Walmart brand).

[catz]

We are 2 weeks beyond stay at home orders and we've personally been locked down over 3 weeks.  Anyway, in the last week it seems like our grocery orders are filling better and people are less panic buying.   Though I saw a good article about how most people aren't actually hoarding.  Just being at home the average family would use 40% more toliet paper than they might normally need.   With 4 of us here 24-7 and 2 teens that is just a lot of food, soap, etc!

I actually nabbed some TP on Amazon and got it in a timely manner just by watching regularly for stock.  So I do think online too things go in and out of stock as it becomes available.  Good luck!

One thing that may be helpful to someone - we moved all our soap dispensers in our house to the foaming ones and we are using substantially less soap.  But I think we're actually doing a better job washing hands overall.

[73349]

Plenty of bar soap on Etsy if there's none in your stores, although it's not cheap. If you want to try making your own with lye, look for The Soap Queen's videos.

When possible, replace paper goods with cloth, and then all you need to keep stock of is detergent.

[TrixieB]

Just checked Home Depot website.  No liquid Lysol available within 100 miles of my home.  I haven't seen any at the grocery store in the last month.

TP, though, all the stores here have TP.  Some have pallets of it, some have just a few packs.

[Pippen]

I've been using Ajax Lemon dish soap for years for myself. I don't like scents and it disipates quickly. I've seen it on the shelf whenever I got. 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ajax-Ultra-Super-Degreaser-Liquid-Dish-Soap-Lemon-90-fluid-ounce/34938309

I have one of these (this model sold out currently) adjustable dispenser, since you don't need the same amount as regular hand soap.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D2FMLX4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I saw bleach at several stores this past weekend, including Dollar General.