Comments on: Oh nuts; Oh balls!

By: Mrs Green

Mrs Green — Sun, 23 May 2010 15:04:44 +0000

@Paul: Great news, thank you Paul - would you like to send me some for review? I’d love to try them out and give you my verdict in this hard water area!

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 18 May 2010 11:43:55 +0000

The manufacturers of Soap Flakes now do a liquid version for the washing machine and are easier to dissolve than flakes. They don’t contain any palm oil (do a google search on palm oil and orangutans). Details at: http://www.dri-pak.co.uk/liquid-soap-for-laundry.html

By: Mrs Green

Mrs Green — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:23:24 +0000

@Sue: Hi Sue, Good to see you again. I’m not sure about the soap nuts; I tried them again and had a really bad experience with some marks they left which now won’t wash out

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:09:38 +0000

Let me know if you want to try the soap nuts again!!
And I’ve got some nice little bags I got from Freecycle!!
Sue x

By: Mrs Green

Mrs Green — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:05:27 +0000

Hi Alison,
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us! And what a great find with the soap flakes. Can you tell me how much you used in a load please? And whether you have hard or soft water? Ours is terribly hard and I would worry that soap flakes would leave a soap scum. I tried the Co-Op stuff but even that was too highly scented for me; I must be really sensitive. Well, I know I am - going out in the garden on a sunny day when our neighbour’s have their washing out can be a miserable time because of the wafting scents coming from their lines

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:06:34 +0000

I’ve been using ecover for a while now, but after a recent accident involving an oil can I discovered that it really doesn’t remove oil - the oil just floated out of the overalls and made a slick on the surface of the bucket. Not wanting to throw away a perfectly good boiler suit I reached for the soap flakes I use for washing wool & sheep fleece - they worked brilliantly and I’ve now started to use them in the machine occasionally, alternating with an eco friendly own brand from the Co op. I’ve found that my clothes are starting to come cleaner again, they’d been getting gradually greyer over the months on Ecover.
I’m not saying that Ecover isn’t good - I was initially very pleased with it, but perhaps washing overalls used while restoring old machinery is not what the detergent designers had in mind?.
I must say that I can’t stand commercial detergents - I can smell them a mile off - I know when someone nearby has washed their clothes in them, which makes me believe that the stories of the perfumes mucking up the pheromones for butterflies etc make a lot of sense. Soap flakes made from fat & alkali and no additives seem like a good alternative to me.