Soap nuts, or Indian soap berries, have become increasingly popular in recent years for a variety of reasons. They are an amazing natural detergent due to anatural cleaning essence that is contained in their shell.Although they have received a lot of love and attention in the last couple of years, soapnuts have been known and used for centuries: these soap berries have historically always been an integral element of Indian customs and used widely by many Indian households. They are the fruits of a small tree called Sapindus Mukorossi tree, native of the Himalayas and the mountainous region between India and Nepal. Also called soapberry nut husks, they are indeed the husk (shell) from soapberry nuts. Once picked and left to dry in the sun, these amazing shells contain a natural cleaning agent called saponin that produces an effect comparable to soap.

TheSapindus tree grows in a wild environment, mainly in the Himalayan foothills between India and Nepal. One of its main characteristics is that it doesn’t need fertile soil to flourish, quite the opposite, and as it grows in hard environmental conditions it also protects its native areas from the risk of erosion. It is incredibly resilient to diseases and doesn’t need any fertilizer or chemical pesticides.

I first discovered soap nuts because my daughter developed eczema as a baby, she had food allergies and chemical laundry detergents seemed to make her flare-ups a lot worse. We tried to swap to non-bio detergents first, but that didn’t help, so out of desperation, I started researching the internet for a solution. There I stumbled on a group for eczema and other skin condition sufferers, and lots of people recommended using these Indian soap berries instead of traditional washing powders. I thought “I really have got nothing to lose” and bought my first bag of soapnuts from an eco-shop online.The results were truly incredible, as soon as I started washing her clothes and sheets with the soap berries, her itching got incredibly better, she stopped scratching herself as much, which used to lead to infections and open wounds and she didn’t find fabric as irritating as before. That was definitely also because of other changes we brought into our lifestyle as a family, from dietary changes to using natural soaps, shampoos and other products, but I am very confident that using Indian berries for laundry had a significant part in it too.