soap nuts

i love it when i come across something unexpectedly solved by nature. there seems to be an endless line of products from mother nature that for some reason isn't popular knowledge. well, i promise that whenever i find something that can be a healthier, earth friendlier option i will share it with the world no matter how silly it may sound. like soap nuts. yes, nuts that make soap. i got my greener-you newsletter email today and the subject was about this cool tree from china that you can use to do your laundry. since i kinda suck at paraphrasing, i'll just copy paste...

Dariel explained the fascinating history behind soap nuts and how they are relatively unknown in the Western world. Soap Nuts are the dried fruit of the Chinese Soapberry tree (Sapindus mukorrosi), similar to the lychee. A long time ago, local folks in the South East Asia figured out that when the nuts get wet, they release saponin, a natural surfactant, making them great for washing clothes! Maggie's Soap Nuts are the only household cleaner made exclusively from Nature, by Nature. A single soapberry tree produces hundreds of kilos of nuts per year! So they are very sustainable and fall to the ground in Indian and Indonesian forests where they are collected by folks who have used the nuts for centuries.

So how do they work? You take 4 nuts and put them in the linen bag that comes with the box, then use them 2 to 3 times according to the web site. I used mine 5 times. For heavily soiled clothes you can soak the soap nuts in hot water first to soften them up and then throw them in the wash. No fabric softener is needed. Maggie's Soap Nuts naturally soften and add body to your clothes. Soap nuts won't get your whites sparkling and white though. Dariel suggested using a bit of natural oxygen bleach. I suggested buying unbleached organic cotton clothing instead to avoid the issue. Soap nuts are great for delicates like wool and silk so that is a big plus.

i hyperlinked the name of the company that sells them to an amazon page if you wanna try them out. I am very interested and will definitely give these things a try. yay for nature!