When I told my friend Molly that I’d ordered these little gems, she burst out in a fit of laughter and told me I would be smelling like BO. And she didn’t stop laughing for a really long time.
Surprisingly though, there’s not much to laugh about. They’re easy to use. I don’t smell like BO. And they work. I’m using them to wash really dirty stuff. Food-smeared shirts, pooped-on pants, my husband’s stinky bike-riding gear . . . you name it, I’ve washed it with soap nuts. And it comes out clean.
I first read about these via Beth Terry. She even got them to change the packaging so hers would have no plastic! I ordered mine through amazon. And because I got one pound, they came in a nice fabric bag. Yes, there was some packaging. And I don’t know what to think about them being grown somewhere across the ocean and shipped to the US. But they are chemical-free. And they did receive a green dot award. So it can’t be worse than the other eco-friendly liquid soap I was using that was packaged in huge, industrial-weight plastic, right?
Here’s what you do:
-put 5-6 nuts in a fabric bag and throw them in with your wash.
-wash the clothes
That’s really it. You can reuse the same 5-6 soap nuts for 4-6ish loads. You’ll know when they start to lose their soapy-ness. They get brittle and disintegrate. I’ve also accidentally thrown them in the dryer. They don’t seem to mind.
I’ve also seen various reports that they won’t work cold water. But the ones I ordered came with a little how-to sheet that specifically said they would work in cold water. I wash a lot of stuff in cold water, and I just throw them in. They seem to work fine.
Guess what Molly’s getting for her birthday? Ha!
Pingback: On the positive | thewashbox