Soap Nut Information.

Imagine you could get away with using no chemicals in your Laundry. Now imagine there is a single product that would help you with all the cleaning in your house – with no chemicals. Now take the leap and imagine the product I am describing is natural and grows on trees, Sapindus mukorossi, the soap berry tree. Soapnuts are also known as Soap berries or soap pods in various places online and around the world.

Soap Nuts are actually not nuts, they are a shelled seed or berry - it’s the shells that we use. They grow wild in Nepal and India and are a natural source of high quality Saponin.

The wrinkly brown part is the berry or shell, and is also known as the soap nut, or soap berry. That is the part that is dried and is packed full of natural saponin for you to use round your home. You shouldn’t find any of the round black seeds in your delivery of soap nuts because I believe that if you pay for a cleaning product then you should get that product with nothing else taking up the weight of your purchase. They have no saponin and are useless for cleaning, but great if you want to grow a Soap Berry tree. The seeds are useless unless you want to grow a soap berry tree, although they do have uses other than cleaning, but they contain no saponin.

To use them you take about half a dozen soapnut shells and chuck them in a draw string cotton bag. Bung the bag in the washing machine drum with your dirty washing and set it going. They are odourless so if you want fragrant washing then add a few drops of an essential oil of your choice to the bag.

Soap Nuts contain no bleaching agents and no optical brighteners - so if you like your whites dazzlingly white you might want to add a box of Ecover Laundry Bleach to your basket!

If you need or want to know more then please do ask a question in the comments and it’ll be answered as honestly as possible.

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