Soapnuts/soapberries/washnuts

[ResolvableOwl]

Collecting experiences with the fruits of Sapindus saponaria and related soapnut tree species, as a source of natural detergents (saponins)!

They also appear under many traditional/local names, such as aritha, reetha … which doesn't make literature work easiser.

There are various mentions as an ingredient in pre-formulated cleansing recipes, mostly for shampoo. It's as well somewhat popular for laundry, although the opinions/experiences about its actual effectiveness tend to contradict. And soon the boundaries between objectivity, the striving to be “natural”, and materialistic PR start to blur. Also this subject seems particularly prone to slip off-topic to the mere question how/where to get them, since it's still a very uncommon ingredient.
All in all, I'm actually a bit disappointed how little self-empowering/DIY wisdom is out there to start “understanding” how saponins behave and how to combine them with other stuff to mutually help out with respective weaknesses.

Some affirmative mentions of soapnut “tea” as lye water in CP soap, though: CP with soapnuts /// Soap nuts... Bubbles... Lots of them! /// Soapwort or Soapnuts /// Using Soap Nuts in CP Soap | Let's Soap
Those who have tried soapnuts as an ingredient in lye-based CP soap, indeed report a lather boost. Promising, but still enough open questions!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Sooo … guess why I'm posting this. I've got some soapnuts and they are now exposed to my unruly compulsion to play around with them and find out what they can accomplish and what they cannot.

First, I need to get my hands dirty with them. Extraction. I went with 9 g washnut shells brewed in 400 mL water for half an hour. It's bubbling happy! I can also confirm the lore that soapnuts (and their extract) aren't very pleasantly smelling by themselves. One recipe I've found calls for adding a rosemary twig to the brew, to shift the smell to be more tolerable.

One of these two batches is made with distilled water, the other with (hard) tap water. Guess which is which.

Now that I've bottled the brew into several jars (air-tight), it's time to come up with ideas what to do with them…

 

[earlene]

I look forward to your findings.

 

[TheGecko]

You should try the waters from Soap Lake (Washington [state] USA)...it's amazing.

 

[Johnez]

I look forward to your findings.

This.

I know your struggle RO. I thought I'd mastered my google-fu until I started researching soap ingredients. Apparently everything is moisturizing and fixes everything under the sun. Finding stuff for hair is just as hard. I've gotten used to filtering out most useless "info," but that sometimes leads to very slim pickings.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Sooo … guess why I'm posting this. I've got some soapnuts and they are now exposed to my unruly compulsion to play around with them and find out what they can accomplish and what they cannot.

First, I need to get my hands dirty with them. Extraction. I went with 9 g washnut shells brewed in 400 mL water for half an hour. It's bubbling happy! I can also confirm the lore that soapnuts (and their extract) aren't very pleasantly smelling by themselves. One recipe I've found calls for adding a rosemary twig to the brew, to shift the smell to be more tolerable.
View attachment 63045
One of these two batches is made with distilled water, the other with (hard) tap water. Guess which is which.

Now that I've bottled the brew into several jars (air-tight), it's time to come up with ideas what to do with them…

Left jar is Distilled Water is my guess.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

As crazy as it sounds – it isn't! I didn't think much when I saw the soapnut tea in tap water (left jar) being clear – until I made another one with distilled water (right jar), and it got much more turbid! Just the other way round as expected from soap.

Both solutions foam readily when shaken, though. I suspect that the minerals in the hard water blocked something in the berries to dissolve in the boiling water, that precipitates upon cooling.

 

[Gaisy59]

I used to do laundry with soapnuts. The results were decent. But it became messy when the nuts escaped the little bag that you have to use. And then i kept forgetting how many times i had used them before they were no longer working. So then i did the “tea” and freezing into cubes so the tea didn’t spoil.

overall the soapnuts worked well but just became tedious.

 

[Arimara]

I used to do laundry with soapnuts. The results were decent. But it became messy when the nuts escaped the little bag that you have to use. And then i kept forgetting how many times i had used them before they were no longer working. So then i did the “tea” and freezing into cubes so the tea didn’t spoil.

overall the soapnuts worked well but just became tedious.

Agreed. I couldn't be bothered after a while and trying to figure out how much to use for the laundromat was tiresome.