eco cleaning:soap nuts or ion balls??

[redheadmum]

I'm trying to change over all my cleaning products to more enviromentally friendly ways of cleaning.

I'm looking at washing clothes at the mo. Have heard of soap nuts and the ion balls ...which is best???

any other green cleaning tips?

thanks!

Firstly I read that soap nuts were messy and not as good at cleaning as eco balls.

I recently bought the ecoballs after reading great things about them and generally I like them, although under the arms of tops still smell sweaty and the bottoms of DD's white socks stay brown.

So instead of squirting non-green stain remover all over everything, I've bought Tesco Naturals Non-Bio powder which I use for clothes that need more 'cleaning' but wash towels/sheets/once used, not really soiled clothes with ecoballs.

I don't use any fabric softener so either have to iron everything or tumble it on wet days but using dryer balls (woollies and boots £9.99).

Blimey - it's hard going completely green but, like you, I'm trying to change over all my household/laundry products.

Check out www.natural-house.co.uk for good soaps/kitchen antibac etc.

Soap nuts every time. Used alongside a little Ecover laundry bleach for whites.

How are they messy? I don't understand that. All you do is put them in a little mesh drawstring bag and keep that in the washing machine. Use for 5-8 washes, put soapnuts in compost bin, put new soapnuts in bag. Easy.

Otherwise, I use lots of bicarb and vinegar for general cleaning purposes.

Soap nuts aren't messy and are IME great at cleaning. I am concerned though about the total environmental impact of them as so far as I know they aren't grown in the UK but are flown in from elsewhere. So I wonder if ecoballs are more environmentally friendly? (not tried them yet, though).

ok so no fabric softener needed with either method? ive read vinegar is good fabric softener, but can you use together? Um what do you mean you have to iron stuff? I have a policy of ironing nothing and sporting a crumpled look for all seasons....but does this make everything more creased???

Ive got a 4 and a 2 year old - so messy stained washing.

I'm interested in cleaning with bicarb and vinegar etc, but despite google searches do n't really get definitive ways of mixing stuff together. is it just bung it in and see what happens method?

plus what the hell is white vinegar? seems simple until you enter the supermarket. Theres white wine vinegar or malted vinegar that is white. Is either of these the right white vinegar?

my one tip is soda crystals. i think they are environmentally friendly, and are great. They do loads of stuff but what i've tried with great success is cleaning of pipes. I noticed the water wasn't going down too well in bath and sink, basically lob a bit down with hot water and hey presto!

I've just bought my first soap nuts from this place - they arrived today .

soap nuts

Really quick delivery, and much cheaper than Lakeland.

Will report back as to how they've worked.

there's a site ecotopia.co.uk that's come up out of my google search. it gives a bit of background to the eco balls.

seems the soap nuts are less of an outlay, but the eco balls last longer.

I clean all surfaces and floors with ecover washing up liquid, very hot water and essential oils - usually orange or lavender oil.

I've been using soap nuts for quite a while. Like other people say they're good for freshening things up, but don't get rid of stains, so I either squirt stain remover on before washing them, or use the tesco naturally stuff if there's a lot of stained things to wash. They're certainly not messy, I put them in an old popsock, and they last for ages. I think the 500g back I bought will last me about 8-9 months, so I'm saving a fortune on washpowder.

I haven't tried eco balls yet, but I had a chat with the woman I buy them from and she uses eco balls in every wash and just uses soap nuts, along with the eco balls in her white wash.

I get my green cleaning stuff from here www.summernaturals.co.uk/ she's a neighbour of mine.

thanks b just checked out the summer naturals site. White vinegar! It's practically impossible (of course) to get these ingredients from the super market.

all well and good....any tips for 'recipes'?

used vinegar and bicarb paste on tiles worked well.

any tips on limescale removal? live in london so have lot of this.

I've recently tried some eco balls out, borrowed from a friend. They were ok on general, not too soiled washing, but not good on soiled nappies... The stains totally remained, and I wondered what else remained too therefore.

Off to try some soap nuts. They sound interesting. Hadn't heard of them before.

If none of them work, you don't need anything like as much washing powder as the packets would have you believe. I use about 1/5 of the amount they recommend on the side of my fairy packet, and the nappies come out sparkly white!

u can see am bored tonight! have been pootling around....

seen some advice to use the soap nuts and eco balls together on v dirty washing. Also to put some bicarb in the soap tray when doing whites.

My OH works in the appliance industry and he has tested a lot of laundry products here is why he would not go near any of these so called green products.

www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.php?name=Content&p a=showpage&pid=202

I'm a bit dubious about how that article pulls up its evidence to show that ecoballs don't clean (which may well be quite accurate) but then just lumps soap nuts in with them in the title and the rest of the article. For example, there are seventeen paragraphs about ecoballs, without mentioning soapnuts at all, and then "So, little if any independent support for the claims at all. It's really not looking good for Ecoballs and Soapnuts." [my italics] . That's just sloppy, particularly in an article that's complaining about lack of evidence and sloppy use of pseudo-science by others.

The rest of it (about how washing machines will get clogged up and smelly unless you use bleach and limescale remover and (in another page on the same site) do boil washes) is interesting, but actually got me thinking that I probably ought to handwash more stuff rather than using the washing machine if the only way to use the machine effectively is to stick all that stuff in it... which is probably not the result they were after.

I can see the point on eco balls, but I thought soap nuts were a 'natural' detergent? (she of no sciences at all)

it's v complicated - i just wanted to save the planet! ha ha

I might get myself a mangle to trial next and see how long it takes to hand wash a load!

I have to say, even after using Tesco Naturals non-bio and sometimes eco-balls, my machine is getting a bit smelly - perhaps I'll run through some vinegar or bicarb and see what happens.

redheadmum - I'm rubbish at remembering recipes, and I'm still trying to use up my cupboard full of cleaners before I get properly stuck into the green cleaning. The only one I can remember is a using 50% water, 50% white vinegar in a spray bottle as a general purpose glass & tile cleaner. A few drops of lemon EO cuts through the smell of the vinegar too.
I also use white vinegar on days like today when I go to the washer to find blokey has tried to be helpful by washing his clothes but then left them in there for 3 days! A couple of glugs of vinegar, a few drops of lemon EO and the clothes are now outside smelling lovely and fresh again.

Soapnuts can be used to make a liquid soap too, (from the summernaturals website) "simmer 25g of soapnuts in 500ml of water for between 8 and 10 minutes. Allow the liquid to cool, this can then be strained or placed in a blender" then you add any EO of your choice. I haven't tried it but apparently it's a great shampoo. My Indian friend brings bags full back with her when she goes visiting family just to make shampoo with.

If anyone wants any specific recipes it might be worth emailing summer naturals. She's mentioned to me before she spends a lot of time answering emails and I've seen her giving advice on quite a few eco cleaning forums.

I sound like an advert! I promise I'm not on commission