Posts Tagged ‘washing’

So for the past month I have been using Maggies Soap Nuts on my diapers. I had heard great reports about them. So I bought a little pack to try out.

My first tip, be sure to explain what they are to ALL of the family who is involved in ANY part of the diaper and clothes washing process! My 12 year old, who takes diapers out of the washing machine and carries the basket out to the line for me, thought they were petrified pieces of poop and was throwing them out :) He was wondering just how the washing machine was hardening up poop :)

Anyway, Soap Nuts are actually the dried fruit of the Chinese Soapberry Tree. They contain saponin which native americans and other old cultures have been using for thousands of years for washing.

You put a few nuts into a little cloth bag and put it in the wash with your diapers — (you can do it on your clothes too — we are not doing that yet because we have other green detergents to use up first). So I run a cold rinse on Braden’s diapers, and then put the nuts in the baggie into the machine with the diapers and wash normally. We have not gotten any detergent build up using them. I have been line drying the diapers as it is summer and the diapers look and smell clean. The nuts eventually lose their effectiveness, but I have yet to throw one out deliberately. They seem to break down, so I just get rid of the fragments.

So I will be buying more soap nuts when this little box I have here runs out. They do last a while though … so we are not there yet.