soap nuts will save your life

Now that I have your attention, I must ask: Have you heard about Soap Nuts?

What? No? Oh dear. Sit down, sister, have I got a story for you.

Once upon a time, there was a nice mama called Pamela. Or Mama, for short. Pamela sometimes plays blogger spends lots of quality time with her children. One day, whilst Pamela was reading blogs and surfing the internet without a care in the world spending lots of quality time with her children, she saw something shocking.

GASP!

It was an advertisement for Soap Nuts. Little dried berries from trees found in darkest jungle places that environmentally savvy mamas, the kind of mama Pamela aspires to be, use to Launder Their Garments.

Being the free sample whore environmentally savvy mama she is, Pamela sent an email to Laundry Tree, the company that peddles these happy berries.

And this is what it said, Blah blah blah BLOG. Blah blahblah dirty laundry in my house blah piled to the roof, blahblahblah promise to blog about your product, blah, send me free stuff because blahblah blah blah sometimes people read my blog. Blah? Blahblah.

Five whole seconds later, Laundry Tree sent me Pamela a reply. Sure! We'd love to send you a free sample!

Pamela was sure this had nothing whatsoever to do with the blog she writes, but mostly the pathetic begging for Free Stuff.

Ten minutes later, Pamela went to the Post Office to get the mail. Because it's not actually delivered on her street, that's why. And much to her surprise, THERE WAS A PACKAGE FROM LAUNDRY TREE!!!! Okay, it wasn't 10 minutes, but it was less than a week. Those people are speedy.

It was a cute little package, see? The cute little card? Is a hand-written note. Who does that any more? Apparently Laundry Tree, re-inventers of awesome customer service, that's who! And for extra beauty, they even sent along a bottle of their favorite essential oil, Energy.

Pamela wanted to try the Soap Nuts on her baby's cloth poopslings diapers. Because it takes a special kind of something to make those suckers fresh and nicey. Except Pamela was having an enormous problem: Morning Sickness. That lasted every waking minute of the day. She was sick, sick, sick, and any extra gross was WAY to much to deal with. And her nicey husband was working The Hours Of The Insane, and she felt bad asking him to deal with the poopslings diapers. So she put off washing the poopslings diapers.

And a couple of days later, she put off washing the yucky poopslings diapers again.

And a week later, she put off washing the yucky vile poopslings diapers again.

And eventually, she stopped using cloth diapers, and just started using disposables. For a while.

Those terrible yucky vile poopslings diapers sat in that dirty diaper sack for a LONG. STINKING. TIME. And we are not kidding about the stink.

One afternoon, after she waited three weeks she decided to put on her grown-up pants and wrap her head in four scarves in the hopes that the smell wouldn't cause her to flood her kitchen with vomit.

Only, too bad for her, because four scarves weren't enough.

Pamela managed to get the terrible horrible yucky vile poopslings diapers and the soap nuts into the washer before rushing off to the bathroom, which is fortunately located right next to the washer and dryer.

Oh? And Soap Nuts are kinda cute.

The washer went to work.

Now, we should tell you that under normal circumstances, Pamela washes the nasty nappys about every fourth day. Or so. Never has there been more than seven days between washings. And usually, Pamela runs the diapers through TWO wash cycles. First, on cold water, with detergent, borax, lavendar oil and tea tree oil. Second, on hot, with detergent, borax, lavendar oil and tea tree oil. The oils kill the germs and leave a light, pleasant scent.

But after three weeks? Pamela was anticipating purchasing new diapers, and had lost all hope that she would even be able to use the nasty nappys as cleaning rags.

Let me repeat: PAMELA HAD LOST EVERY LAST SHRED OF HOPE. AND WAS COMPLETELY EMBARASSED BY THE THREE WEEK NON-WASHING PERIOD. For the record.

After the first wash (hot water, because she follows directions) was finished, Pamela gingerly opened the washer. And smelled NOTHING. Seriously. NO. SCENT. WHATSOEVER.

Pamela reached in and removed a diaper. It was shiny. Well, not really shiny, but if cotton could be shiny, it would look like thatverysame diaper. She pressed the diaper to her face and smelled? Nothing. It smelled like clean fabric, only with no nasty fakey chemical smell. She pulled each diaper out of the washer. Each one was nearly as white as, well, they were all clean and white and lovely.

If we wanted to be Exceedingly Gross, we could tell you that there was one poop diaper in the bag that hadn't been shaken, stirred, or rinsed. It contained at the time of being put in the washer. And Pamela couldn't even figure out which diaper that was. Because they were all shiny, each and every one.

So Soap Nuts? TOTALLY WORK.

End storytime.

We here at the dayton time cannot imagine that you would have any clothing situation more disgusting than the one Pamela had brewed up for three weeks before introducing the Amazing Soap Nuts into the concoction. We are sure it is highly improbable that you could have anything more vile than that sack of...poopslings. (If this weren't a product review, I *so* would have gone there. With a line through the potty mouth word, and something a little less potty in its place.)

Let's sum up:

1. Soap Nuts are actually a dried berry, making this a super all-natural product.
2. Soap Nuts are harvested in a sustainable manner, and the native workers are paid a fair, living wage. This is VERY IMPORTANT to the Boss of Things here at the dayton time.
3. Soap Nuts are versatile, and can be used to clean virtually every surface in your home. Also, Soap Nuts are great for cleaning one's hair and even cleaning your houseplants and keeping pests away.
4. Soap Nuts are in the same price range as most high-efficiency, brand-name laundry detergents. But unlike regular detergents, there are neither chemicals nor scents in Soap Nuts, and Soap Nuts are gentle to super sensitive skin. And believe me, we know about sensitive skin in our house.
5. Soap Nuts can and should be used multiple times.

So head over to Laundry Tree, and see what they have to say for themselves. I think you will be impressed. And if I wasn't such a cheapypants I'd have thrown away my "regular" detergent and be using Soap Nuts right now. Because you know I never run out of laundry at my house.