Review: Soap Nuts Liquid Detergent

You all know, if you follow this blog at all, that I am becoming more and more crunchy by the minute.  ;)

And I just can't help it!  The more I learn, the more I fall in love with the benefits of less chemicals and synthetic...junk...for lack of a better term.  

In my discovery of cloth diapers, I have stumbled across a ton of awesome "crunchy" products.  Along the way I heard of these things called soap nuts.  Weird right?  Soap nuts.  I had heard they were really good for a natural detergent for cloth diapers but I just left it at that.  The little bits I had picked up along the way were that they were natural (and usually organic - yeah!) and good for sensitive skin (awesome) but that you had to keep the nuts, yes actual nuts, in a bag in your washer.  Of course, that sounds like a pain to me.  Wouldn't they be a pain to find every time you washed clothes?  And then they only work for 'x' amount of washes so you have to have a good idea of how many times you have used them...

Didn't sound like something I wanted to deal with when there are so many other great cloth diaper detergents out there that are more convenient.

And then I discovered that they make soap nuts liquid!  No wash bags.  No counting the number of loads  they have been through.  And still all of the awesome qualities of soap nuts!  

Right out of the box!

While we're on the subject, what exactly are those awesome qualities?  What makes Green Virgin Products Soap Nuts Liquid stand out?

• The cleaning power is equal to, if not better than, that of the toxin-filled leading brands.
• It is completely, 100%, eco-friendly.
• Extremely hypo-allergenic and can be used by people who can't use any other detergent!  This is a huge plus for us as Hubby and I are both allergic to a few brands of detergent, plus, I want the best detergent for Baby Girl's sensitive newborn skin!
• The soap is extracted from the soap nuts without any chemical processes, only water!
• Since it is a liquid, they had to add a preservative (or it would only last a couple of days).  Instead of using a preservative with a Skin-Deep rating of 3 (which isn't bad when the scale goes from the least toxic being 0 and the most toxic being 10), they continued to research until they combined 2 ingredients for a Skin-Deep rating of 1!  (Sidenote - You really should check out the Skin-Deep website...it is completely changing the way I approach our health regime.)
• BONUS - They actually put their Skin Deep rating ON the bottle!  If every company did that we might really think differently about the products we buy...just sayin'.  ;)
• It cleans better than the actual soap nuts and they out-cleaned competitors soap nuts liquid by 300%!  Isn't that crazy awesome!?!
• The pump pre-measures the detergent so you just put 2-3 pumps in the wash depending on the type of machine you have.  Love that I don't have to measure!  :)
• Now this is really neat - it makes a fantastic window cleaner!  Just dilute 50 parts water to 1 part soap nuts liquid.  How awesome is that?!?  They also say it makes a great counter-top cleaner and you can use it to wash your car!

So how did I like it?

First of all, I absolutely LOVE how earthy it smells.  It makes me feel really good about washing my clothes knowing that I'm not adding any icky chemicals to our daily lives.  And that smell just reminds me that all-natural and organic is possible!!

It cleaned our regular clothes just as good as the detergent I make myself.  Which is nice.  I always like having something else on hand when I get low on my homemade stuff.  Because, let's face it, sometimes I just don't feel like making more.  ;)  And, unfortunately, my homemade detergent is not cloth diaper friendly so I need to find something else anyways.  And this just might fit the bill!

Hubbies work clothes are another story.  I don't have to wash them often since they use a uniform company that cleans them on a weekly basis.  However, sometimes he doesn't make it into the office on the day of drop-off so I have to do a load every now and then.  My detergent doesn't always get all of the dirt out (if I add oxy-clean it does...but I usually forget).  I took a couple pictures of the dirt that did not come out of the first wash I did with my homemade detergent:

Ick.  Super annoyed MY detergent didn't work.  :P

Then I washed them with Soap Nuts Liquid.  And this is what every single pair of pants looked like after one wash:

Ta Da!

Really great results I think!

My only complaint is that the packaging for shipment was not that amazing.  The box was marked "fragile" but still ended up looking like this:

This is after I opened it.  However, I just used a knife around the edges - didn't make it any worse...

And left a nice dent in my bottle of detergent:

While this didn't affect the product, it was still a little bit frustrating.

Over all - I highly recommend this product and I'm strongly considering it as our go-to cloth diaper detergent.  But that final consensus won't be in until I actually have to wash some dirty diapers.  ;)  

I'll be sure to share an update when that time comes!  :)

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.