House | Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants)

Trader Joe’s Plants: RUBBER PLANT (Ficus)

I like rubber plants. I had a nice one that lasted about 20+ years. However finally that one started to weaken and eventually die. I’ve been thinking of replacing it for a few months.

Lo and behold I saw this rubber plant at Trader Joe’s yesterday. It looked really healthy to me. Very robust with new growth on the way.

So I decided it was time to replace my late rubber plant I had for so long and missed.

TJ’s had nice healthy looking rubber plants for $11.99. I was not dirt cheap but elsewhere I would see comparable rubber plants for at least $20 if not more, so I decided to take it home.

These make good houseplants that are easy to take care of and don’t even need a ton of light, so are a good choice for many.

HOW TO CARE for a rubber plant aka ficus elastica

A few weeks later…. new growth, doing well!

Trader Joe’s Liquid HAND SOAP (Bath & Kitchen)

TJ’s sells these bottles of liquid hand soaps in three different scents. This one is “Pink Pomelo Grapefruit” and it has a really nice citrus-y grapefruit smell. They also have a Lemon version, and that one says “Kitchen Hand Soap”. Not clear on why only the Lemon one would be for the kitchen / hands. Looking at the ingredients they seem more or less the same to me. My wife however specifically told me to get the her the Lemon “kitchen” version, for her in the kitchen. In fact, when I bought this Pomelo grapefruit one home for what I thought would be a nice little variety in our kitchen she looked at me like I was crazy and then told gave me a very clear “No Way” to this Grapefruit one for the kitchen. Why? It doesn’t say “Kitchen” on the label and the Lemon one does. I see the grapefruit one says it has Jojoba and Argan oils which I would think would be good for hands, no? The Lemon one doesn’t include these Argan or Jojoba oils, but then what do I know? Anyway all the 3 kinds of TJ’s hand soaps are good, make lots of lather and smell great. These go for $3.99 each for a large pump bottle (17 oz.). I would buy it again.