Soap Nuts: Biodegradable, Hypo-Allergenic and Sustainable Detergent

Independent Review of the Only Tree-Grown, Sustainable Soap

Soap nuts are one of the Earth's truly sustainable, all natural soaps. Actually a fruit containing saponins, soap nuts are harvested in India and Nepal from trees in the wild.

Sustainable and Biodegradable Detergent

Soap nuts are not only sustainable, but they are also biodegradable, chemical-free, and gentle. For a natural detergent for your laundry, look no further than the humble soap nut. They have been used for thousands of years for cleaning in Central Asia. They can be purchased online from buysoapnuts.com and other websites.

How to Use Soap Nuts for Laundry

Soap nuts are very easy to use in your washing machine. Pop 3-4 soap nuts into one of the small cotton bags, available at buysoapnuts.com . Tie and toss into the washer, add clothes and water. You can use the same soap nuts for 4-5 loads, then they can be disposed of in your compost pile, a benefit of using all natural detergents!

According to Erin Johnson, who co-owns buysoapnuts.com with her husband, a business they run from their Melfort, Saskatchewan home in Canada, you can also make liquid soap nuts laundry detergent outlined on her website.

Adding 1/2 cup of borax or baking soda to the wash cycle boosts the cleansing power of soap nuts and to increase the germ killing power, add 1/2 of white vinegar to the rinse cycle. Soap nuts are naturally softening, so you do not need to use any fabric softener.

Soap nuts are great for washing delicates. They are non-irritating, a wonderful perk for those with sensitive skin.

Do Soap Nuts Have a Fragrance?

The clean, fresh scent of Nature is the only "fragrance" that soap nuts have, which is a plus for those with allergies. If you want to add fragrance, add essential oils; a few drops into the wash or onto a clean rag, tossed into your dryer will do the trick.

Soap Nuts and Dirty Jobs

When asked if soap nuts work for heavily soiled items like dirty cloth diapers or a teenager's athletic socks, Erin, a mom herself states that soap nuts work great to remove bad and musty smells. She recommends adding 1/2 cup of borax or hydrogen-peroxide to whiten and disinfect. She was amazed at the natural clean smell after she first used soap nuts to launder her daughter's dirty diapers with soap nuts, the lingering urine smell was gone! Another bonus, she found, was that the natural saponins in soap nuts worked to strip the old detergent residue from the cloth diapers, making them more absorbent again!

Soap Nuts and Your Eco-friendly Conscience

Although some consumers are concerned with the energy costs of shipping products from the far corners of the globe, harvesting and exporting soap nuts creates jobs for villagers in India and Nepal. Often, these jobs are community-based co-ops that provide sustainable, economic prosperity for local people. The alternative can be a loss of forestry, when the soap trees are cut down for a one-time use as firewood. Look for soap nut's suppliers which are certified as Fair Trade.

Soap Nuts might look a little funny--but they pack a powerful, all-natural option to the chemical, manufactured detergents polluting our bodies and water. Try some and you might just keep on "buying soap nuts"!

--Pamela Palmer