Soap Nuts

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.

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 seeds aren't the part we want for cleaning, although they do have their uses. You could grow a new soap berry tree, or the seeds do have other pharmaceutical uses but they contain no saponin so you don't want to pay form the weight of a seed when you want shells.

To use them you take about half a dozen soapnut shells and chuck them in the draw string cotton bag provided. 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 shopping.

Paypal prefered but personal cheques/postal orders also accepted.