One of the greenest things you can do with regards to the household chores is use less petrochemical based detergents, and more natural soap based products.  Soaps are the original Simple Green Cleaner.  They can be all natural and even organic cleaning products.  The Eco Friendly cleaner should have several types of soaps to hand;

• Soft soap or liquid soap, for use as a diluted all round general cleaning liquid.  For cars, floors and anything else you can think of.
• Bar soap for rubbing into stains prior to washing the laundry.
• Soap flakes as a pre-soak for dirty laundry and more.

Simple Green Cleaning with Natural Soap

The key to Green Cleaning with soap is not to use too much.  That’s how soap scum builds up and leaves you working even harder to remove your Simple Green Cleaning Product.

Natural Liquid Soap – Click for Full Range

The cheapest green cleaner has to be ordinary bar soap.  From this you can make your own soft soap and soap flakes.  Simply grate your bar of vegetable based soap to produce soap flakes.  Boil these up in water and you create soft soap which can be diluted further as a general household cleaner.  It is even good as a windscreen wash on the car, since detergents (even mild ones such as dish-washing detergent) can corrode the varnish on your car’s paintwork.

Simple Green Cleaning Products don’t come any more basic than soap and water.  It is probably why we’ve neglected it as a green cleaner for so long.  It just seems so old-fashioned and basic that it can’t be any good -  surely.  In fact soap is pretty alkaline giving it anti-bacterial qualities (why do you think it’s so great for washing our hands to keep germs and virus’s at bay?).

Don’t forget too, that soap can be used outside too.  It isn’t just a green cleaner; it’s also a safe pesticide.  Great for dealing with insect pests and fungal problems on your garden plants, insecticidal soap is merely soap used as an insecticide.

There is no product too basic and unassuming to be rejected as a Simple Green Cleaning Product.  The most basic ideas are often the best, and they simply cannot be beaten when it comes to price and their low environmental impact.

Related posts:

1. Simple Green Cleaning Products #1
2. Simple Green Cleaning Products #2
3. The Ultimate Simple Green Cleaner
4. Simple Green Cleaning Products #4
5. Safe Laundry Detergent

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.

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

Soap Nuts – Click to View all Products

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.

Related posts:

1. Natural Household Cleaners – Eco Friendly Cleaning
2. Simple Green Cleaning Products #3
3. Eco Cleaning Products
4. Simple Green Cleaning Products Review
5. Make Cleaning Eco Friendly – The Dark Green Approach

If we weren’t all so darn clean we wouldn’t be having such a negative impact on the planet just by doing the laundry!  But, truth is we like our laundry to be REALLY clean, and with the labour saving appliances to hand are able to clean our laundry much more regularly than in days gone by.

Laundry detergent can contain enzymes and bleaches as well as phosphates and other unfriendly particles slow to break down in the environment.  The water treatment companies have a tough job filtering all this toxic waste out of that water heading for rivers and the sea.

Plus, we all know how irritating detergents can be.  The only reason manufacturers try to sell us ‘Gentle’, ‘Mild’, or ‘Baby Safe’ detergents is because their standard products so commonly cause skin irritations and allergies.  Many consumers switch to a safe detergent for the new baby’s laundry but surely our older skin could do with just as much care and attention too?

Safe Laundry Detergents – Click for Full Range

Safe Laundry Detergent – What to Look For?

Obviously companies like Simple Green and Seventh Generation will provide a safe detergent option, but sometimes even the conventional manufacturers may have something to offer.  To check if your product is a safe detergent check out those ingredients for the following:

• Avoid phosphates.
• Avoid chlorine bleach and whitening agents.  Opt instead for non-chlorine bleach made from sodium percarbonate.
• Choose readily biodegradable.
• Choose plant based detergents wherever possible.
• Avoid synthetic fragrances if you or your family are prone to suffer from allergies.
• Avoid ‘biological’ detergents containing enzymes (they clean brilliantly but are often extremely irritating on skin).
• Choose concentrated safe detergents to reduce packaging and transport costs to the environment.

For more information on the components of laundry detergent click here.

Eco Friendly Laundry Day

Don’t forget the other little changes you can make to laundry day.  Alongside your new safe laundry detergent try the following and make your cleaning even more Eco friendly.

• Turn the temperature down.  Most loads will come out fine on a cool cycle.  Save the heat for when your washing really needs it.
• Forget fabric softener and drop a cap of white vinegar in final rinse instead.  This cuts through any residual detergent, descales the machine and puts some anti-bacterial power into your wash.
• Don’t forget how often clothes benefit from a simple airing rather than a full-blown wash.  Hanging dry-clean only cashmere sweaters outside for an hour or so gives you much more wear-ability between cleans.
• Only use the machine for full loads.
• Line dry whenever possible.
• Run the machine’s waste outlet to the garden and benefit from your greener safer waste water to keep your garden happy.
• You could always opt out of detergent altogether with home-made cleaning recipes or Eco friendly wash balls.

Choosing a safe detergent is simple, it just requires a little reading.  Ignore the ‘natural’ or ‘green’ packaging and check out that ingredients list to make sure your purchase really is safer for you and the environment.

Related posts:

1. Simple Green Cleaning Products #3
2. Eco Friendly Cleaning with the Goodbye Detergent Original Spaghetti Scrub
3. Eco Friendly Laundry – Nellie’s Dryer Balls Review
4. Eco Cleaners – Eco Wash Balls
5. The Ultimate Simple Green Cleaner

One of the easiest ways to make your laundry cleaning Eco friendly is to ditch the detergent. The simplest way to do this is to choose Eco Wash Balls or Laundry Balls. These little globes are all you need, no fuss, no measuring, no worrying about trying to find a safe laundry detergent. Laundry is a big issue for our environment. One of the main reasons a larger family has such a big carbon footprint is the washing machine!

Early in the 20th Century the developed world began washing more and more laundry and causing real issues for the treatment of waste water. Waste water became so foamy with traditional soaps that an alternative was needed. That alternative was oil based detergents. Impossible to biodegrade fully they leached phosphates and altered the balance of algae and other plant growth in our waterways. But, the suds were gone!

Eco Wash Balls – Click for Full Range

Opting for a phosphate free laundry detergent is helpful, but still those detergents are less than perfect. So, what about Eco Wash Balls? They clean your clothes by ionising the washing water. This sounds a bit mystical but actually ionisers are one of the most important components of any laundry detergent including those green cleaners. The ionising action makes any minerals in the water less able to interfere with the water’s ability to dislodge dirt and move it away from the fibres of your laundry.

I have been using Eco-Friendly Green Wash Laundry Balls for two years and have to say I have been very pleasantly surprised by the results. All my laundry is done on a cold wash so I am really testing the cleaning power of any green cleaner I choose to use in my machine. As well as ionising the water to allow it to carry out most of the cleaning action, they affect the PH level of the water too. Inside the green Eco wash balls is full of ceramic spheres. These raise the PH level to around 10, exactly as conventional laundry detergents do, which the manufacturers tell us, is why they can clean so effectively.

Now, I have to admit a certain scepticism about such things, but generally these Eco cleaners do work. However, I should warn you, that if your laundry is often very dirty you may well find the Wash Balls do not cope quite as well as your usual product. That isn’t any reason not to buy them though because it is simple to top up their cleaning power when faced with a really dirty load of laundry.

I regularly do loads of washing which are work-clothes covered in cement dust and all manner of building rubble residue. For such loads I simply add 1/2 a cup of baking soda to the detergent draw on the washer. With that little boost the Eco wash balls do a thoroughly good job of cleaning. So, even though I occasionally use additional green cleaners those Eco laundry balls still save me an awful lot of money and reduce my laundry pollution no end.

If you have really dirty laundry and really hard water you may find you have to resort to the additional power of a little baking soda more regularly than I do. In fact, you may do the same as one friend of mine (with a real detergent habit) who still uses an Eco friendly laundry detergent too. But, she uses only a tiny drop. Each bottle of her green cleaner lasts six months or more, when before she’d be lucky to get a month’s worth of laundry out of one. So even then, she saves money and pollution over time.

You do not need to use fabric softeners with the laundry balls as there is no detergent residue which needs rinsing away. Things come out of the machine fresh and clean. But, as I have admitted to occasionally very dirty laundry needing a boost, sometimes the laundry really does stink. I’m talking about those damp dog smelling towels which get left in the sports-bag, or anything the cat has had a mishap on. In such cases I just squirt a little white vinegar in the fabric conditioner tray. That vinegar neutralizes any odour left in that smelly laundry.

I was seriously worried when I bought my Eco wash balls. At around $40 it seemed like an awful lot of green laundry detergent I could buy. But, in fact I have saved much more than that. Most laundry balls last around three years. So even if you factor in a box of baking soda and a gallon of vinegar, you’ll pay less than £15 a year for your laundry. In my house that is probably only a few months of laundry using conventional or green cleaners.

The fact that there are no phosphates or indeed anything else nasty coming out of the washing machine waste-water is simply an added bonus! Laundry Balls are quite a point of contention amongst lovers of green cleaning. Some (like myself) absolutely love them, while others claim they are not quite so effective. Normally those people have very hard water, and/or lots of horrendously dirty washing – sports kits and so on. For me, it doesn’t really matter. Even if you really cannot bring yourself to only use the Eco wash balls, it only takes a tiny sprinkle of baking soda or a dribble of green laundry detergent to make them work exactly as well, if not better than your ordinary green cleaner.

Related posts:

1. Eco Friendly Laundry – Nellie’s Dryer Balls Review
2. Safe Laundry Detergent
3. Eco Cleaning Products
4. Simple Green Cleaning Products #3
5. All Natural Cleaning Products – Soap Nuts Reviewed