Soap Nuts

Soap nuts clean clothes without harsh petro-chemicals chemicals. Okay we know that. Soap nuts clean hair without irritating foaming agents and endocrine disrupting chemicals. We know that too. Soap Nuts clean pets, floors, toilets, and sinks without harmful chemicals. Yes we know that too.

Although in the “laundry list” of things soap nuts can be used to clean many people mention you can use them in the dishwasher or use soap nuts to wash dishes by hand. But let me share some proof of just what washing dishes with soap nuts can do for your budget, the planet, and your dislike for washing dishes.

Okay not everyone hates to wash dishes. Some people find it therapeutic. But others battle constant skin irritation from washing dishes with traditional dishwashing liquid and their foaming agents. Others are battling the new phosphate free dish washing rules that are begin to appear. The greatest part of that battle is to find something to use in your dishwasher that works and is affordable.

Soap nuts … yes soap nuts are the chemical free natural cleaning answer for that too!

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Soap nuts are a gardener’s dream come true for more reasons than just using them ground into coarse soap nuts powder for a chemical free hand scrub.

With the beautiful weather months at hand more and more people are out digging in the dirt planting for beautification or planting vegetable gardens. With all of that outdoor work comes the need to deal with dirty hands, dirty clothes, lots of perspiration odor in your clothes, grimy faces, and more than a few preditory insects trying to have a snack at your expense.

Soap nuts in their various common use forms answer every one of those challenges, and do so chemically free and without exposing your body or clothes to harmful irritating detergents or cleansers.

Before heading out to the garden mist yourself with some soap nuts liquid as a green chemical free insect repellent. The saponin is a natural insect repellent but will not harm you or your skin like many of the traditional insect or mosquito repellents.

After using soap nuts powder as a chemical free hand scrub for my mobile mechanics it seemed sensible that if soap nuts worked that well on oily greasy hands they’d work equally well on dirt on the hands and under the finger nails after gardening. So a few weeks ago after clearing an area for a ginger garden I had filthy gardener’s hands. Okay some people wear gloves but I’m am very hands on in everything I do and gardening is no exception. My nails are fairly short but even so I had plenty of sandy black grit under them and anyone who has ever gardened with their bare hands knows getting the dirt out from under your nails is a challenge and requires serious scrubbing.

I was amazed at how great my nails looked after a short scrub with soap nuts powder. I was equally pleased that scrubbing my hands with soap nuts did not dry them out.

Once I finished the gardening for that day my next challenge was the dirt that was all over me and my clothes, not to mention the eau de armpit I’d acquired from working in the afternoon sun.

I dropped the clothes into the laundry and popped my soap nuts in their wash bag into the washer and headed for the bath tub for a soak and a some serious scrubbing (or so I thought).

A few months ago I started sprinkling soap nuts powder into my bath water and the tub filled knowing that there would be a lot less scrubbing required because the same way soap nuts change the water tension in the washing machine they do the same in water used for any kind of washing.

Once the tub was filled I slid in, and took a spoon of the soap nuts powder I keep on the side of the tub for and started on my feet. I should mention at this point I also usually garden bare foot so there was serious dirt caked on my feet after watering in the new garden. I make it a habit to scrub my toe nails with soap nuts powder at least once a week to deter fungal growth and keep my nails white naturally. I have some scientific documentation on how well the saponin from soap nuts works as an antifungal treatment so if you need a good anti-fungal detergent try soap nuts. I’ll share that data in one of my next posts.

Back to soap nuts and gardening.

I sprinkled a bit of soap nuts powder onto my damp skin and lathered it up all the way from toes to top and then took the bottle of soap nuts liquid I keep on the side of the tub and washed my hair with it. Yes soap nuts shampoo too. Hey if I’m going to keep my house and body free of chemicals then my hair deserves the same treatment.

Keep in mind I have very coarse full hair below my waste so there is a lot of it to wash. I have had to learn to adjust to using soap nuts shampoo because since there is not real lather guaging how much can be challenging. Once in awhile I get brave and use the soap nuts powder mixed with some vegetable glycerin for shampooing also. I have found that you really need to have your hair very wet to shampoo with soap nuts and you need to use as little as possible and rinse really well. I always squirt a dab of vegetable glycerin into my damp hands after I shampoo with soap nuts because my hair tends to be coarse and when I do that the comb glides through my hair with no resistance. I can’t even say that was true when I used to use regular sulfate sudsy shampoo and hair conditioner. I’ll dedicate an entire post to soap nuts shampoo in the coming weeks because I know many people want to try it but don’t know where to start of who to use soap nuts for a shampoo.

On a side note since I started washing my hair with soap nuts shampoo I have notice a great deal less breakage and my hair seems to be growing faster. I suspect this is due in part to how healthy my scalp is because of using soap nuts.

But back to soap nuts being a dream come true for a gardener.

The last item that needed scrubbing was my face (and then of course the bath tub). I sprinkle a little soap nuts powder (finely ground) onto my hands work up a nice lather and clean and exfoliate my face all in one action.

The bath tub took a sprinkling of soap nuts powder on the grimy bath tub ring and some swooshing with my bare hand and my bath tub was spotless again.

Now think about this if I had used one product for each of the things I described above I would have purchased at least 7 products to do what I did with soap nuts; one item which I get packaged in muslin bags from NaturOli.

Seven products packaged in plastic:
Laundry detergent
Hand soap
Body Wash
Shampoo (and Conditioner)
Face Wash
Face Scrub (for exfoliating)
Bath Tub cleanser or soft scrub (read my post on soap nuts as a scouring powder)

Not only did I get my body, hair, hands and feet, face, clothes, and bath tub clean I did so with no negative impact on my person or the environment.

Oh and after I make soap nuts liquid (soap nuts tea) I take the spent soap berries and sprinkle them around in my flower beds to deter insects, especially ants. They break down over time right into the soil and while they are breaking down the soap nuts act as a natural insectide and insect repellent but with no harm to either my plants or the ground water.

Wahooo … now who could not like soap nuts. Whether you are looking for ways to cut household expenses, have sensitivity to chemicals or fragrances, or want to reduce the waste you produce soap nuts offers a solution. Oh and they are so much less expensive to use than all those packaged chemical cleaners and personal care products.

I can make a 3 liter bottle of soap nuts liquid at home for approximately $2.23 cents using 1 1/2 ounces of soap nuts. That’s if you buy the NaturOli soap nuts in a one pound bag. I buy the 4 pound bag of NaturOli Nuts Soap Nuts so in point of fact my cost for the 3 liter bottle of soap nuts liquid is actually $1.35. Since I harness solar power to make my soap nuts liquid I have zero energy cost for it too.
Read the post on making soap nuts liquid greener http://www.soap-nuts.info/2009/04/01/making-soap-nuts-liquid-greener

I use that 3 liter bottle for laundry, counter tops, insect repellent, dishwasher detergent, dishwashing liquid, liquid hand soap, for mopping the floors, washing the cars, and shampoo.

Costing out the soap nuts powder is a bit different since I do both a fine grind and a coarse grind depending on what I am using it for. If I use the fine grind to wash my face or as a hand or foot scrub I use about 1/8 of a tsp yes only that tiny bit does the job.

The coarsely ground soap nuts powder I use for scouring sinks, bath tubs, toilets I use about 1 tsp for each sink, bath tub, and toilet.

In my next post I’ll give you the numbers on how much using soap nuts powder for personal care and as a chemical free scouring powder costs.

The next time you head out for time in the garden be sure you have your soap nuts ready!

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Soap nuts are the answer to “How can I be greener this year?”

Many of us have been trying to make our lives greener in the past months. But for many it poses a challenge, because terms like natural and green are so commonly thrown about by companies who are first and foremost manufacturers of chemicals.

While is it not impossible for a company that produces chemical cleaning products to be greener than their competition. The truth is that most if not all so-called natural detergents, natural cleaning products, and natural personal care products simply are NOT natural, and they are rarely green.

So what is green cleaning exactly? Well, again opinions vary about that, hours spent on the internet searching may not provide an answer that makes that clear.

I’ll share my own version of green cleaning here:

• Derived from a naturally occuring substance with little or no alteration
• Sustainable
• Limited use of fossil fuels to get product to market
• Environmentally friendly packaging (at least recyclable or reusable packaging)
• Limited negative environmental and human impact when used
• Reduced packaging
• Biodegradable
• Multiple uses from a single product

Soap nuts are all of those things and here are the finer points on each aspect from the list above.

Derived from a naturally occuring substance with little or no alteration - Soap nuts are ready for use exactly as nature produced them and require NO alteration (except drying) to be useable.

Sustainable – Soap nuts trees grow naturally in areas of the world where few things will grow because they are drought resistant trees. Each soap nut tree will produce soap berries for up to 90 years. At one time the trees were cut down for lumber, but as the demand for the soap berries has increased the trees are now a source of a product for many decades instead of for lumber. In fact in some areas soap nuts are being plantation grown, again in soil that would grow almost nothing else.

Limited use of fossil fuels to get product to market- Soap nuts are hand harvested by the indigenous peoples in the impoverished areas of the world. The deseeding is also done by hand and they are then left to dry naturally. So basically zero fossil fuel consumption to get them ready to market. Now of course fossil fuels are used in getting them from source to end-consumer, but a major segment of the production chain is zero fossil fuel consumptive.

Environmentally friendly packaging (at least recyclable or reusable packaging) – While this is not true of ALL companies that sell soap nuts, NaturOli hand packs the plain muslin soap nuts bags. Additionally there is no ink or printing on NaturOli’s packaging because in truth they see it as a waste of materials and resources. The tags with the use instructions are printed on recycled paper using soy inks. Only true of NaturOli’s soap nuts. Oh and the bags can be reused for all kinds of things which makes the packaging reusable.

Limited negative environmental and human impact when used - Soap nuts are sold as nature grew them, they are not treated in any way, and because the soap berries are naturally antimicrobial they are even being used to remediate toxic soil in some parts of the world. The trees themselves are resistant to pests and fungus which means that there is no need to treat the trees to protect them from parasitic invaders. Soap nuts actually are used in various forms in Aryuvedic medicine which would lead us to believe they have positive impact on humans.

Reduced packaging- I actually cover this earlier in this post, but soap nuts (as sold by NaturOli) have the most minimal packaging possible. The muslin bag and the tag. NaturOli doesn’t even take the extra resources to attach the tag to the bag, because most of us will just pull it off to read it anyway so why waste the materials to attach it in the first place. Some soap nuts suppliers put a plastic liner inside their muslin bags. They tell us it’s to keep the soap nuts fresh. On the contrary it holds moisture inside and can often cause the soap nuts to begin to pre-release saponins making them VERY sticky. This is not what you want, but it’s off topic and I’ll cover that in another post soon.

Biodegradable – Soap nuts can be tossed on the compost heap once you’ve used them and will biodegrade. If used properly there’s virtually nothing left of them because they’ve almostly completely dissolved before you dispose of them.

Multiple uses from a single product – Many people seek multiple purpose cleaners these days. Hey it’s easier to buy one product and do many clenaing jobs with it. That’s also a green approach becausse the fewer products you buy the less production (in theory) and the less packaging to dispose of or reycle. But in the case of soap nuts the uses are pretty limitless.

Take some time to visit previous entries to see all homemade chemical free cleaning products this one single completely natural product can be used for to clean everything from your toilets to your toenails, your carpets to your cars, your laundry to your linoleum, your pots to your pets, and everything in between.

So, are soap nuts green? I’ll leave the final decision to you, but in my house soap nuts have made green cleaning easy.

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