Crazy for Soap Nuts!

So I discovered a new product that I LOVE. I found Soap Nuts. Has anyone ever tried these? They come from the chinese soapberry tree (Sapindus mukorrosi). Native Americans used these to wash their clothes. They are 100% natural and you can use them more than once to wash your clothes. Apparantly one Soapberry tree produces hundreds of kilos of nuts per year. You can even try growing a tree yourself and harvest your own nuts. From the research I have done these work really well in high efficency washing machines.

You just put the soap nuts in a provided cotton bag (or I use an old sock and just tie it shut) and throw them inside your washing machine.

For warm/hot water use 2 soap nuts and for cold water use 4 soap nuts. Apparantly if you wash them in cold water you can reuse them a little bit more. You can tell when they are spent when they no longer feel squeaky clean or sudsy when you rub them.

For heavy soils you pre soak 4 soap nuts in a provided cotton sack in hot water for a few minutes. Then add the "tea" and sack to your wash load.

For hand washables soak 2 soap nuts in hot water for a few minutes in a provided cotton sack for a few minutes. Then add "tea" to cool water to wash clothes.

For whites add a scoop of oxygen bleach.

There is a way to make them into a liquid detergent as well.

It says that you don't need fabric softner, that these will not only make colors brighter and white's whiter, but will also leave clothes feeling soft. They do say that if you use too many nuts it can make your clothes feel stiff. So if this happens just use less nuts the next time.

As far as price goes you can buy many different packages. You can go to Maggiespureland.com and get all of the info. You can buy enough soap nuts for 200+ loads. It comes with instructions and cotton sacks for $34.99.

There are a few other web sites out there that sell these.

The only thing about these is that they don't leave a pretty smell to your clothes. So for those of you out there that are used to using fabric softner, it might take some getting used to. They don't smell bad, they just don't smell "perfumy".

I love them. The work great. And they last forever. Sometimes after using them for 5 times I boil them in some water on the stove and I still get soap from them. Then I use it for a basic household cleaner. I just add some lemon juice to it.

I would love to hear from people out there that have tried these. All opinions are welcome!