Maggie’s Soap Nuts from Amazon.

Here at Eco Green Cleaning Products we’ve looked a little at ways to make laundry cleaning Eco friendly. With eco-wash balls and safe detergents you’d think the laundry was all done. But, there is another green cleaner to keep your family safe, the planet happy and your whites white. Soap Nuts have been used for over 5000 years on the East but have only recently become available in the West.

Maggie's Soap Nuts. (1 Kilo, 200-400+ Loads) 100% Natural Laundry Soap. Grows on TreesTM. Very Best Quality. America's Premier Supplier. Wild Harvested! Processed with NO Chemicals or Preservatives.

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Maggies Soap Nuts 100% Natural Laundry Soap (80 Loads)

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NaturOli Soap Nuts Sample Pack. (~5 loads) "Select" USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC soap nuts, heavy-duty wash bag + 8-pg info & instructions. 100% chemical free. Rated "best" eco-friendly, natural laundry detergent. Green Dot Award Winner.

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Maggie's Soap Nuts Laundry Liquid - 4oz.- 8 Loads - CONCENTRATED - The World's Only Laundry Liquid Made With NO Synthetic Chemcials. Micro-brewed in an Organic Tea Bottling Facility From Wild Harvested Soap Nuts.

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NaturOli Soap Nuts Wash Bags (Set of 3) Large, Extra-heavy-duty, Muslin, Double-Draw. UNPRINTED! No inks to come off in your wash.

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So how do Soap Nuts compare as a green cleaner for your laundry?

Soap Nuts Info

Soap Nuts are not nuts at all but they definitely really are an All Natural Cleaning Product. Purely the dried fruits of the Soap Berry tree (Sapindus) there is no processing required to turn these fruits into and environmentally safe cleaner for your laundry.

How Do Soap Nuts Work

The fruits of several varieties of sapindus or soapberry trees contain large amounts of saponins. These saponins are compounds found in many plants including soapwart which were used historically to produce soaps in their native lands. It is the saponin which create soapy bubbles or a lather when agitated in water. This lather is able to dislodge particles and clean, just like the surfactants used in conventional cleaning products.

All Natural Cleaning Products

You can buy processed soap nuts which are turned into Soap Nuts Powder or Liquid Laundry Detergent. They are still 100% biodegradable and safe on sensitive skins but they do require a little manufacturing to process them ready for you to use. Plain old soap nuts are just dried, packed and shipped.

Although the trees grow throughout the tropics the soap nuts available in the United States generally come from Nepal and India. Nothing is added, nothing is processed. You get a completely all natural cleaning product with which to do your laundry.

Safe Cleaning Products

Traditionally soapnuts have been used for much more than just cleaning laundry. In South East Asia they are used widely as shampoos and body soaps as well as household cleaners. With no additional components there are no stabilisers or perfumes to aggravate sensitive skins.

Soapnuts are hypoallergenic so safe for all your families skin. With no potentially harmful chemicals they also care for the laundry, making them safe to use on delicate fabrics such as silks and woollens.

Environmentally Friendly Cleaners

From the production side of things, soap nuts are extremely green cleaners, but how about once you’ve used them? Of course, no chemicals are heading out of your washing machine, just soap nut residue. But is this safe?

In fact the residue from soap nuts isn’t just safe it is actually beneficial as it actively helps break down grey-water. They are recommended for septic systems as they promote a speedier decomposition of all the waste materials sent there.

Soap Nuts Review

I have to admit, I was sceptical. Surely these soap nuts are just too perfect. Kind to us, actually beneficial in our waste-water, surely there should be a catch. Well, it seems not really.

Eco Cleaning Power

Looking at all the customer reviews on retail sites like amazon the surprising thing is really how happy people are using them. Quite a few customers say they do pre-treat greasy stains. But, we expect any green cleaner to be a little less powerful than tough toxic detergents. But, compared with ‘ordinary’ Eco clean laundry detergents these actually seem to come out on top.

People like the fact that they are concentrated. All you get are the soap nuts so you’re not paying to transport water across the country. And, depending on which brand you choose you can avoid paying for plastic packaging too.

As the makers suggest not to use fabric softener with these, one or two customers say they miss fragrance. Soap balls leave clothes smelling of nothing at all, so people often throw a drop of essential oil into the rinse cycle to add some natural perfume to the washing.

One of the things many customers seem happily surprised about is how well soap nuts eliminate odours. Even used to wash cloth diapers the soap nuts didn’t need anything else to leave the laundry smelling completely fresh and neutral.

Value for Money

Customers all agree you get an awful lot of clean laundry for your money. Soap Nuts can be purchased in small Sample Packs (enough to do 5 loads) from $2.75 so you don’t have to invest an awful lot of money to find out if they’re the right all natural cleaning product for you.

Then, for the converts soap nuts can be purchased in a huge range of weights. But with 5 soap nuts used in the average load, and able to be re-used 4 or 5 times. Buying the larger packs which do 100 or more loads can mean your laundry only costs 10 cents a load which is definitely good green value for money.

Downsides

It seems the only real issue consumers have with soap nuts is that they can sometimes be a little sticky or ‘gloopy’. This means you can get your hands a little sticky when taking the nuts out of the packet and putting them into your machine. But, with consumers also pointing out that this downside does not affect the power of soap nuts to clean efficiently, greenly and cheaply I can’t honestly say it bothers me. Because soap nuts react with water this only seems to be an issue under humid conditions anyway.

Soap Nuts Reviewed

Overall customers are far more positive about this all natural cleaning product than they usually seem looking at voluntary reviews. Most are happy with the cleaning power though do admit to giving a little boost by pre-treating stains and extremely happy with the odour eliminating power of the product.

One thing a lot of customers highlight is that the soap nuts are not just for laundry. They can be used to clean just about anything by creating your own liquid soap by soaking in warm water. People even do their dishes with them!

With better green credentials than any of the competition because they are un-processed, natural and lightweight to transport they definitely have to be worth trying a Trial Pack to help you decide.

Personally, soap balls win hands down in the Eco Friendly Cleaning Laundry stakes. Being a truly All Natural Cleaning Product means we help the environment in so many more ways than with usual green or safe detergents.

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Simple Green cleaning products come from the Sunshine Makers Inc corporation. They have been making Eco cleaning products for over thirty years. Initially the business produced tough but biodegradable cleaners for use within industry. Now they produce a wide range of industrial strength and more traditional household cleaning products which are kind to the planet. Recently they have also introduced an All Natural cleaning range with the greenest credentials of all.

Industrial Strength Green Cleaning

Simple Green cleaners are used widely by industry and government which proves they are tough cleaners. Some of the industrial strength items such as Simple Green Industrial Strength Cleaner- Degreaser are being bought by household consumers to use at home. All the customer reviews confirm this is indeed a very tough product indeed. But, it is also completely biodegradable, non toxic, non-abrasive and generally a very safe product.

An advantage of the fact it is widely used in the workplace as an industrial cleaner, is that it therefore has to meet more strict health and safety testing than purely household products. This does however mean that during the early 1980′s they had to use animal testing to meet the US government’s workplace toxicity requirements. Thankfully the company is using the same active ingredients already tested so no longer needs to utilise animal testing. But it is interesting that a company is forced to do such things, though they may not agree with the process.

The whole ethos behind the Simple Green brand really does seem to be to keep things simple. There are very few products in the range and few ingredients. Sunshine Makers have kept to their original plan to sell concentrated biodegradable products which the consumer dilutes and uses for a wide range of jobs.

Concentrated Green Cleaning

Because the multipurpose cleaner is so concentrated the company advise us to dilute it with ten to thirty parts water. This means for general cleaning you are in effect buying thirty times as much green cleaner as you see in the bottle. Nearly all the household chores can be tackled with Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner And Degreaser. There is a lemon scented version which is exactly the same formulation just with a lemony fragrance.

This highly concentrated formula comes out of the company dealing initially with industry. Space and money constraints mean concentrated forumlas are the norm. At home we have not been offered such concentrated cleaning power as standard by many companies. This supply of such a highly concentrated product means we use much less packaging and transportation costs to get the cleaning power we want.

Simple Green Packaging

As with most consumer items there is always packaging to worry about. As mentioned, the high level of concentration means we buy fewer bottles of the product so helping reduce packaging. Plus, because the products are non-toxic, a quick rinse enables any bottles to be reused at home. All their plastics are either PETE spray bottles (Polyethylene Terephthalate) or HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) drums.

Both types are 99.9% readily recyclable which is as good as it can get for plastics recycling. The company are investigating using more post consumer recycled plastics in their own packaging. They also use corn starch products rather than Styrofoam in their packaging.

Customer Reviews

On the whole, people seem extremely happy with the power of Simple Green. It does a very efficient job of cleaning and because you dilute it, you can vary its strength easily depending on the job at hand. You can see here how happy some customer’s are.

Obviously not everyone is completely uncritical. However the main issue seems to be not the cleaning power of the product but the toxicity. This is a very personal thing, everything is toxic in big enough quantities. Simple Green is non-toxic as determined by US Government but that doesn’t mean you might find minor allergic reactions, just like you might to grass or dairy or any number of things. So while the products are safe there are occasionally hyper-sensitive souls who will be affected by the smell or ingredients. Looking at the reviews though, an awful lot of people who say they are sensitive to cleaners are not affected by this brand.

On the whole Simple Green is a very safe cleaner. Zoos, Vets, Business and Government use the products to clean public and private areas. It is used in food preparation facilities and animal housing and as it is an industrial product it has gone through much more rigorous testing than most cleaners.

All Natural Simple Green

Ordinary Simple Green uses biodegradable, safe and non-toxic ingredients. But, it does not focus on all natural ingredients. They work on the theory that many natural ingredients are toxic or allergens, so they focus on using ingredients which are safe and effective regardless of whether they are natural or synthetic. A pragmatic approach which has allowed them to build up quite a success and a worldwide following over the last thirty years.

For some consumers this lack of ‘all natural’ ingredients means they really aren’t as green as they would like. But, for others the ‘all natural’ tag is just an addition not the core consideration when choosing a green cleaner.

However, this has now changed. Sunshine Makers have responded to some consumer’s desire for All Natural Cleaning Products with Simple Green Naturals. The range has some pretty good green credentials.

All the ingredients are of natural origin including plant derived essential oils for fragrance and cleaning agents. Here’s what the company have to say on the matter:

Simple Green Naturals are 100% naturally derived, with ingredients originating from nature: chicory, coconut, corn, palm, naturally occurring minerals, salt and sugar, and water. Nothing else.

Happily, customer reviews seem pretty good. Simple Green don’t seem to have lost their cleaning power with the new range of natural products either. They have taken the green tag one step further with partially recycled packing and soy inks for labelling too. Also, the company offer complete ingredient disclosure on this range of products so you can really be sure of what you’re getting.

Simple Green Review

Sunshine Makers give consumers a really good choice. All their cleaning products are greener than conventional alternatives as they are all non-toxic and biodegradable. The fact that they have different ranges, industrial, ordinary and all natural mean they offer the consumer exactly the degree of green they are looking for. Of course for some this is a turn-off as it means your money spent on all natural products is profiting a company which also uses synthetic detergents in others. But with all their products being safe, non-toxic and biodegradable using Simple Green is a vast improvement on conventional brands.

It doesn’t hurt that the company itself is so keen to invest in the future too. Money is invested into educational programmes to ensure the next generation look after the planet. Their products are also used to help in environmental clean up operations as they are so safe for wildlife too.

For consumers wanting something powerful and less polluting their ordinary range is ideal. For those demanding something more natural and milder the new All Natural range is a great choice to make Cleaning Eco Friendly. Check out the full range of simple green at Amazon.

Simple Green 13022 All Purpose Cleaner. 22 oz.

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Simple Green 13005 All Purpose Cleaner. Gallon

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Simple Green Simply Green Foaming Degreaser, 20oz

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Simple Green 14001 Lemon Scent All Purpose Cleaner. 22 oz. trigger

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Sunshine Makers 60014 Simple Green BBQ Grill And Microwave Cleaner

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These Simple Green cleaner customer reviews show how useful the range really is.

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