I thought I'd give soap nuts a try.
I'd dismissed as snake oil the laundry ball idea, because they were fuck-me expensive and plastic and I'd actually done a little research and found a lot of comment saying they were basically hokum. No different from washing in just water.
So, ever hopeful, I ordered me up a bag of soap nuts.
Now yes, there was a bit of comment out there in the interwebs saying they weren't much use but ... I'd read they were full of mother nature's soap, saponins, and it all sounded so green and wonderful and they were a lot cheaper than the laundry balls and were natural-grown-from-tree things and could be composted! I convinced myself, I ordered them.Anyhoo, my green laundry dream is not to be.
The soap nut wash got our I-wore-this-so-I'll-pop-in-in-the-laundry-bag stuff, you know, once worn and just-for-the-evening-in-front-of-the-tv t-shirt or a frock worn to work on a non-hot-and-steamy day (we've had a couple of those recently) "clean". However, I suspect if I'd just put that classification of laundry through Sven with just water I'd get the same result.The stinky, sweaty, filthy actually dirty stuff, like Mr Brown's french cuffs (I think he dips them in printers' ink), stuff worn on a hot day or when exercising, on the other hand, total soap nut fail.
I'm typing this as Sven, dosed up with laundry liquid and tea tree oil, gives those things a second whirl.
The nuts, well, at least we can compost them.
Why yes, they do look disgusting (a little like caramelised sheep poo I think). And, according to Mr Brown how approached me yesterday, nose-awrinkled, asking "what IS that in that bag in the laundry" they smell pretty funky too. (Because yes, he did stick his nose into a bag of unidentified wrinkled brown things.)
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