I led a group Buy for Soapnuts once somewhere around last month and have started using them one week after I got them for laundry. I never seem to find the time to blog about it or to share the experience of using soapnuts till now. All I can say is that I am mighty glad that I actually got myself 1kg of soapnuts!
Why?
Because they work like a charm! Okay, so at first glance, they looked like nuts, sticky nuts.
Opened the bag and "OMG!" the smell is... well, it has a pungent smell to it, but it isn't a smell that will make you not want to use it.
I placed 5 nuts in an old sock. I found a pantyhose-like sock and used that. I tied a knot and soaked it in hot water for 5 minutes just to soften the nuts up. I noticed some bubbles forming as I was pouring hot water into the bowl with the nut filled old sock.
I started the washing machine and placed the old sock into the machine. When the machine stopped, I checked Chago's napkins and cloth diapers.... No traces of the sourish soapnut smell. The laundry was clean, napkins looking white and cloth diapers did not smell of urine or soapnuts. It smelt like detergent actually... I wasn't sure why, it could be because there might be some detergent residue left behind from the other previous washing.
I used these 5 nuts in that old sock for about 4 laundry cycle. And then removed them from the sock. I used about 3 rounds of soapnuts, so that means, I have about 15 used shells. I soaked them in hot water last night, and saw that they were still producing some bubbles.
So this morning, here's what I did:
I removed the used soapnuts that was soaking from the night before. As you can see from the pictures above, it still looked puffy, and the inside of the nut (when I pinched the skin of the nut open) you can see a yellow layer, which, I think, still contains soap. I squeezed whatever I could from the nuts and put them aside.
The water in the bowl was yellowish. There were no smell of sour soapnuts. When I dipped my fingers in it, it did not feel soapy but when I rubbed my fingers together, there was a little itty bitty bit of soapy feeling.
Ready for action! I did an experiment. First with my dirty dishes from Breakfast this morning. I was amazed! I did not need to use so much. All I did was dipped in the scrub cloth in, slightly squeeze it and scrub the plates and the cups like I normally would with any other detergent. Rinsed them all and I found myself surprised at how effective it was at removing dirt and grease! So I did another test, this time on a wok.
Before: Oily and greasy. I had Maggi Goreng for breakfast! So that's what it looked like before soapnut action.
After: With just one dip into the bowl of soaked soapnuts, this is what I got! A grease free wok! I rubbed my finger on it, it went "squeak squeak squeak!" Oh what Joy!
Now, we all know how greasy the back part of the wok can be. I used soapnut water and look! I really could not believe it. Miguel was as surprised as I was when I showed him. He said..
"It feels cleaner than washing with the dish wash detergent!"
I took the soapnuts that I placed aside and soak and squeezed more soap out of it.
And then I place them all in a pot (it may look like there were more than 15 in there because the nuts came apart when washing in the washing machine), filled them up with water and left it to boil. It's cooling down now. Let's see what we find later :)
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