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Everyday, new products are being researched and created for
the sole purpose of making life more efficient. But is this
really good for us? Are all these fancy chemicals created to
foam up instantly and strip away every single speck of oil
and dirt really necessary?
The most common ingredient in most soaps and detergents
nowadays is some form of sodium laurel sulfate. This stuff
is powerful and is actually also used to clean car engines
and other delightfully greasy things like the bacon grease
stain from yesterday’s breakfast.
In the midst of this technology some people are beginning to
take a step back and are reconsidering the use of these
everyday chemicals. Some people may be allergic and others
may be trying to become more earth friendly. That’s how I
chanced upon soap nuts, a.k.a. soap berries since they
aren't really berries with nuts inside. I wanted to find an
earth friendly way to wash my clothes that wouldn’t have any
nasty ecological impacts.
Soap nuts are berries that grow on trees in various places
around the world, primarily in Asia. The nut is removed and the berry itself is
actually dried and used. They are rich in saponins. Saponins
are exactly what they sound like, soap! Soap nuts have been
used since before anyone kept track by Native Americans in
the West and South Asian Indians in the East. They also have
a use in Ayurvedic medicine. They have commonly been used to
treat lice due to their natural insecticidal properties.
I decided to use soap nuts just for my laundry but I’m
interested in experimenting with them for other uses. To use
soap nuts I just tossed 5 of them into a cotton drawstring
bag and put it in with my laundry. (No fabric softener was
added.) I used a front loading machine at a Laundromat. I
used warm water because the saponins are released from the
soap nuts better in warm or hot water. I was a little weary
when I was watching the machine run because there weren’t
many suds, but after the wash I dried my clothes and was
pleasantly surprised that they were soft and clean.
The only thing that was lacking was the “fresh” scent of
chemical fragrances. If you prefer your laundry to have a
nice scent, a few drops of any essential oil can be added to
the wash.
I’ve only done a few loads but so far I’m
happy with them. Here’s a summary of the some of the pros
and cons I found with soap nuts.
PROS: cheap; light; ecologically friendly and totally
biodegrable; can be used for a myriad of purposes from shampoo to
dish detergent to laundry; low sudsing so they're good for high
efficiency washers;; anti-microbial so good for septic systems.
CONS: won’t get out stains so you still need to spot treat stains;
strength of soap nuts varies from seller to seller.
I hope soap nuts
continue gaining popularity because I think they’re an excellent
alternative to today’s chemical cleansers and they’re a great step
forward to having less of a negative ecological impact on the earth.
And the more people want them the sooner I'll be able to buy them in
stores like Wild by Nature rather than ordering them online.
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To find out more
about soap nuts and where to get them, do a Google search. There are
lots of informative and interesting articles even from vendors. But
buyer beware, even in this fledgling industry, there are scams. Does
"organically grown whole soap nuts" sound great? Wrong. All soap
nuts are organic and you don't want the seeds! The seeds inside are
worthless excess bulk and weight you will have to pay shipping for.
You want them dried and with the seeds removed, and not last years
berries since you can't be sure how well they will have been stored.
Here is one interesting site though there are many others.
http://www.soapnuts.pro/soap-nuts-faqs/
Chemical structure of a saponin.
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