Eco Nuts are the sterilized and certified USDA organic version of soap nuts used for cleaning your laundry that are earth friendly and hypoallergenic.
Ease of Use/Performance: 4/5
Convenience/Storage 4/5
Appearance/Design 4/5
How much I enjoy 4/5
Total: 4/5
Eco Nuts are the earth friendly choice in soap nuts with a proprietary sterilization process and a plastic free packaging. Eco Nuts sells a variety of soap nut products including soap nuts, liquid concentrate, bar soap and a variety of laundry and home cleaners.
Soap nuts are actually the berry of a fruit tree and have an outer shell which contains most of the saponin so the main thing we want out of our soap nuts is the outer hull. Soap nuts are actually bad tasting to insects so they do not need pesticides and the trees grow well in poor soil for a great product for the low income countries the trees are grown in.
Laundry detergents do several things but the main thing we want them to do is to clean our clothes by removing the dirt and washing it away when the clothes are rinsed. To remove dirt and oil the detergent needs to lower the surface tension of water so that the dirt and oil will mix with the water and rinse away.
The surfactant in a detergent is what is doing the work but something else you don’t know much about is also happening, suds are being generated but they do not indicate the level of cleaning. Suds are merely an indication that there is a surfactant at work but it does not mean the clothes are getting cleaner.
When you have more suds there is either more detergent to generate those suds, try squeezing lots of dish soap in a sink, or there is little dirt for the detergent to react with. We don’t need to see the detergent working we just need to find out that the clothes or other items have been cleaned when the wash cycle stops.
I prefer smell to find out if things are clean as well as appearance and soap nuts do just as good a job as most other laundry detergents I have tried from the best to the cheapest. I have tried Tide Free and Clear and other expensive detergents and those cheaper ones but have not been really impressed with any until now.
Detergents usually have dyes, perfumes and other chemicals to help you or get you to think that your clothes are being cleaned but in fact much of that stuff is not doing much to clean your clothes. Perfumes only make your clothes smell and dyes are only added to make the detergent look more appealing when you’re using it which we really don’t need.
If you’re sensitive to chemicals or have allergies even those clean and clear detergents may not be gentle enough as they still contain chemicals that are processed. I have been having more and more allergic reactions and have switched completely to those free and clear detergents but they have not helped all that much.
Eco Nuts are one company’s take on eco-friendly soap nuts with a proprietary cleaning process to sterilize the soap nuts and are certified organic. The Eco Nuts website states that some processers of soap nuts dry their nuts on the roofs of buildings and shacks which is very believable when you see videos soap nut harvesting.
Lying around on a roof in the sun means birds can fly over as well as those four legged friends, rats, can run across the drying berries leaving behind undesirable things. Sterilizing the soap nuts before shipping them out and sorting them to specific standards means the company cares about your health and the health of those that are going to be exposed to the product.
Soap nuts are also a great way to clean baby diapers and clothes as they are natural and do not have all those extra chemicals that can irritate skin. Eco Nuts use that extra cleaning process to ensure your loved ones are safe and will not be harmed by a product that is contaminated with unseen things.
Eco Nuts are available in the berry form that has had their seeds removed as well as a liquid that is made from the berries but is highly concentrated. The soap berries are used either in a small bag with 4 to 5 berries per bag and just tossed in the laundry or boiled down to a liquid.
When you boil soap berries you simply place a dozen or so berries in about four cups of water and boil until the berries lose their brown color. You can reuse the berries you toss in the small cloth bag up to ten times until they lose that same brown color as they do when boiling.
The liquid Eco Nuts you make yourself is used just like regular liquid laundry detergent but you only use 3 tablespoons according to the Eco Nuts website. I have been using both the Eco Nuts berries and the Eco Nuts Liquid Detergent that is concentrated and has a preservative so it does not go bad.
If you use your homemade liquid it can go bad due to the natural ingredients so you need to store any homemade liquid soap berries in your refrigerator. The Eco Nuts Liquid Detergent does not need to be stored in a cooler environment and you use less per load, about a half a teaspoon.
The Eco Nuts Liquid Detergent works just as well as the berries and I have found a new detergent for my own home laundry but cost is now the deciding factor. I reviewed soap nuts from another company that does not sterilize their soap nuts and they cost roughly $7 less including shipping.
If you’re worried about the extra sterilization Eco Nuts is a great product and the liquid version I received worked extremely well. You have to retrain yourself to use much less than the usual laundry detergent when using liquid soap nuts which is how I prefer to use soap nuts but I will be making my own liquid detergent.
I will not be buying any soap nuts for at least a little while as I now have enough to last several months but the supply I have works very well for both companies products. Eco Nuts has a great product but I am not really convinced that sterilizing an already organic product is worth the extra cost but if you think it will help with a cleaner product it works well for a detergent.
I do recommend Eco Nuts as a great laundry detergent but I am not sold on the price of the proprietary sterilization process they put their soap nuts through.
Eco Nuts Website
