Soap Nuts and Felted Wool Balls

I decided to try a new laundry routine. Because my skin has been so irritated lately I've been looking for chemical/artificial scent free alternatives to my usual products. To start I went to Amazon.  

Soap Nuts are actually a berry.  They produce a natural soap.  I got the trial pack 10 load size to try.  Felted Wool Balls are exactly what they say they are.  Balls of wool that has been felted.  They are used as a alternative to fabric softener.

So I did a load last night and I am very happy with the results.  My laundry smelled clean when I took it out of the washer.  I didn't have any extreme laundry issues, but there was no stains, dirty spots, or color bleeding left behind.  I threw it all in the dryer with my 3 felted wool balls and set the dryer for it's normal cycle.  I will preface this with I have an old dryer.  It usually takes 2-3 cycles to get my laundry dry.  With the felted wool balls my laundry was dry, soft, no static, and all in ONE cycle!

Lastly the soap nuts are biodegradable and compost able!  If you are a composter throw them suckers in your compost heap when you are done with them.

I give these products all my scaly sausagey toes and fingers up!

Now to give you an idea of costs. Felted wool balls on Amazon were 19.95US (I know a bit costly for a laundry product), but are supposed to last for YEARS.  With the better drying time I'm also saving electricity SCORE!  The sample size of 6 soap nuts which should be good for 10 loads was 6.77US.  It is a bit costly for 10 loads, but I didn't want to commit to a pound of soap nuts and then find out I hated them and be irritated about throwing them away.  I'm cheap and get very stressed about wasting my things.  My next order will be the 1 pound container which is 21.95US and should be good for 200 loads.  The site does recommend if you have a front load washer that you get the soap nut oil because the buts need the agitation to work.  I would think that if you throw them in the barrel with your clothes that they would work fine, but since I have the dinosaur washer I'll leave that to you trendy front loaders to experiment with.

I am going to off the interwebs for the most part this week due to traveling to Baton Rouge, LA to see my oldest child.  It seems like FOREVER since I've seen her besides on Skype.  I'm SO excited.

To those of my readers who are from the US Happy Thanksgiving!  See you in a week or so!