Expat Mama Recommends...

Buy the local soap! Soap (for laundry, hands, cleaning and dishes) is something that is available here in abundance. The strong soap here can get almost any stain out of clothes, and we do some hard-core staining around here.

The best soaps come in three colors: white, tan and blue. My favorite is white because it looks so clean and promising, but tan is cheaper and works just as well. There is also a powdered soap available locally which we use for laundry that doesn't need to be scrubbed.

The only thing the soap doesn’t get out of clothes is oil stains; I’m still searching for a remedy for that.

But after washing out hundreds of poopy stained cloth diapers, my diapers (after two children) are still stain-free, thanks to the soap!

The only soap I would recommend “importing” is Burts bees baby shampoo/wash for when your babies are very small. The reason for this is so that it doesn’t sting their eyes. I actually still use this for my girls’ baths but the local soap varieties work great for everything else. No matter how dirty the clothes get, I can get them clean.