The Cost of Luxury

I always love it when someone says something that makes you see something completely differently.

 My friend once told me he sometimes associates a cost per hour to judge entertainment value of various options.  For instance, he doesn't like to go to a movie theater for a lot of reasons but one of them is the fact that it cost $12 to see a two hour movie.  That's $6 an hour for entertainment.  Whereas a book that cost $12 may give you 12 hours of entertainment, ending up costing you $1 an hour, a far better deal.

My mom even said something along this line when she was sporting a new, rather expensive jacket.  When I commented on her jacket and said it didn't look like the usual Goodwill find, she said she had started to figure the cost of clothing not by it's initial cost, but by the cost per wearing of it.  If she spends $150 on a new jacket and wears it 150 times, that's $1 per wearing.  If she buys a $20 jacket at Goodwill and wears it 10 times, that's $2 per wearing and ends up being the more expensive choice.

A person could easily apply logic like this to the purchase of any item.  Naturally, I thought of soap.  One of the main reasons I make soap is for the sheer luxury of the end product.  There's something very lavish about bathing with a new bar of handcrafted soap.  It's equivalent to drinking wine from a really nice wine glass or eating a meal off of fine china.  It just feels different, better.  It's a small bit of richness in an ordinary day.

The thing is, I can't think of any other luxury item (although I'm sure there are some) where the cost per hour of the luxury is as good as it is with handcrafted soap.  For $5 you get hours(?) of luxury.  Who wouldn't want this opulence for a product that one has to buy anyway, for mere pennies per hour?