Forums >Gears and Wears>Soap nuts?
Defy Gravity
I am almost afraid to unleash the topic of nuts of any kind in this forum, but has anyone used Eco Nuts (or another brand) soap?
http://econutssoap.com/
I am very intrigued by this product, but it's not clear to me whether it would work well with wicking fabrics, which usually discourage use of fabric softener. I'm concerned whether the natural fabric softening properties of soap nuts interfere with the wicking capabilities of technical fabrics.
hootenanny: chock full of hoot, just a little bit of nanny
Well, here is the reply I received from the company anyway:
Regular fabric softeners work by depositing a waxy residue on the fabric which blocks the moisture pathways for technical fabrics and can interfere with the wicking ability to draw sweat away from the skin.
The natural fabric softening abilities for our products are different and occur because the natural soap opens up fibers which actually keeps them absorbent, so they feel softer and fluffier without a residue. Eco Nuts has been tested and approved for cloth diapers where absorbency is extremely important. Our products have been tested and used on many performance fabrics and have not caused issue, but has not been tested on all types of fabrics.
levitation specialist
We used soap nuts when our youngest wore cloth diapers, so for about 2.5 years total(he is 5 now). So not like a long time ago or anything! They work well for naturally laundering your items in a thorough manner, yet gently. Honestly, they take out everything EXCEPT sweaty oils, which unfortunately, we produce a lot of when exercising. As good as they were at cleaning his diapers and covers, they didn't do well with adult clothing. So I ended up just washing his diapers and the kids clothes with the nuts after a while(not in the same load though.....eww!) And washed the hubs and mine with regular soap.
I don't use fabric softener though, on anybody's clothes. Have you seen what that stuff does to wallpaper?! I am not putting that against my skin for prolonged periods of time.
I don't know anything about Soap Nuts, but we went the cloth diaper route too and switched all of our general washing to Charlie's Soap... <cite>www.charliesoap.com/ </cite>It's biodegradable and worked so well on the cloth diapers that we switched to using it on all of our clothes with no ill effects on my wicking clothes...