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Review: Soapnuts

By Kristie Turck •  Published 04/21/10 •  3 min read

Last updated on August 20th, 2022 at 12:14 am

soapnuts with laundry bag When I first heard of soapnuts, I was intrigued.  No chemicals, just pure nature.  So I decided to give it a shot.  And like with any natural product, I’m an immediate skeptic.  Perhaps this is years and years of being brainwashed by large corporations making me think that surely all of those chemicals are necessary to clean your clothes.  And surely, that artificial “laundry” smell that we’re all so fond of is what laundry is truly supposed to smell like.

What are Soapnuts?

Soapnuts, if you’re not familiar are nature’s little nuggets, hailing from the soapberry tree.  That gives off the ability to create a lather.   You can use them for household cleaning, bathing, and of course, laundry.

How To Use Soapnuts As A Laundry Detergent?

For laundry, you take 2-5 little soap nuts and put them in a little muslin satchel. Then you just throw it in with your laundry. The soap nuts will naturally clean your clothes. When you empty your washing mashing you simply take out the muslin bag and discard the soapnuts. In some cases, you can use the soap nuts for more than one load. And there you have it.  The washing machine agitates well enough to create a lather, leaving you with clean clothes.

How To Use Soapnuts To Make A Liquid Hand Soap?

Curious to see how they work?  Stephanie from Bubble and Bee put together a quick video on how to use soap nuts to make a foaming soap.

I really love the idea of a greener detergent and fewer chemicals being absorbed into my skin.

So How Did They Work For Me?

First, I did a load of whites, put in some natural whitening powder tossed the soapnuts in their handy little muslin bag, and threw them in my machine. You can still do this if you have a front loader, it works fine.

The result?  CLEAN clothes.  They smelled fresh, like clean laundry, but obviously not like chemically clean laundry.  It was pretty cool.   The best thing is that you can get a few loads out of one bag of soapnuts.   My clothes were also noticeably brighter.   Also? Not crunchy, which tends to happen with a lot of eco-friendly laundry detergents, I’ve noticed.  And nobody likes are their clothes feeling as if you’ve put a pound of starch on them?  Especially baby clothes.

Soapnuts work for our family. Have you given them a try?

 

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