Has anyone had success with making soap from Soapwort? And did you like the soap?
Soapwort
I grow the plant but never made soap. Do you actually use this plant to "make" soap? I always thought the roots were used as soap. Might be all wet here... LOL
I don't know anything about soapmaking, but I have read that one of the uses is soap. I would like to grow it and make soap to have an organic soap for skin and hair. And I would add other herbs.
I know there are soapmakers on DG ~ I will see if I can find their threads and link them here. I don't think they use soapwort but may be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time... LOL pod
Thanks Pod. In case you are interested, there is an organic garden talk thread at the oraganic forum.
I'd be interested in hearing experiences using Soapwort for laundry. We picked up a trial box of Maggie's Soap Nuts this weekend. I did three loads of laundry with 4 of the soap nuts. They did a great job. All odours were eliminated, the clothes were very clean, and they dried with a wonderful softness. No fabric softener needed with the soap nuts. Now if I just grow them in my own garden!
Interesting, where does one find Maggies' Soap Nuts...
They are sold in the laundry/cleaners section of natural foods stores like Whole Foods etc. and online.
There is a link to a page with photos at this thread on the Sustainable Alternatives forum:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/752135/
Maggie's soap nuts are imported from Indonesia. Seems like some of our native plants might work jjust as well. Heck, it'd be great if I could pick up a bag of dried local soap berries at the farmers market.
The small box I bought at Whole Foods was $9.99 ($10.81 with tax) and is supposed to good for 16-20 loads. That's $0.68 or $0.54 a load at that price. It'd be cheaper if I bought the bigger box.
I left the four soap nuts I had used for the prior three loads and did a pre-wash of the kitchen towels and dishrags. They deodorized well with the used soapnuts but still needed some oxygen bleach.
One article mentioned that the plant saponins did not do a good job in removing oily stains, so I'm going to have to experiment when I get one of those. It might be necessary to pre-treat with a castille soap or borax for the oil and then wash with the soap nuts.
This message was edited Sep 4, 2007 6:09 PM
With soapwort, you dig up the plants, wash 'em, bruise the roots, and swish 'em in water, to make sudsy water.
Or, you can make a light shampoo, by "blendering" the chopped roots with water, and straining out the root.
Btw, yucca is pretty good, too, as a soap substitute, but harder to come by, unless you live in the southwest.
cyra is right on the nose.
Saponins are made of sugars and foam in water, while soap (not to be confused with detergents) is made up of fatty acid salts. Saponins don't actually clean as well as soap does at all. It'll be interesting to see if this soapnuts fad stays popular. A really excellent "natural" cleanser, is a soap made from coconut oil. More readily available is Dr. Bronners. A lot of people rave about that soap.
This is from my original post in the sustainable alternatives forum.
I don't think this would be a problem if your waste water isn't allowed to run into the watershed. But if you are water your yard with your grey water, this may be a problem.
Quoting:
SAPONINS
Saponins normally break down in the digestive system and must enter the bloodstream to be toxic, but fish take in saponins directly into their bloodstream through their gills. The toxin acts on the respiratory organs of the fish without affecting their edibility. Saponins also cause the breakdown of red blood cells that help the toxin to spread quickly. Even though the effects of the poison are powerful, they are not usually fatal. Fish that are washed away into untainted water revive, and can return to their pre-toxic condition. Because of this, the fishermen would have to gather the stunned fish quickly as they floated to the surface.
Saponins are one of a group of glucosides found in many plant species with known foaming properties when mixed with water. Saponins lower the surface tension of water allowing the formation of small stable bubbles. The amount of foam created by a crushed plant sample, shaken with water in a jar, is a good indication of the amount of saponins present.
Saponins have been used in modern times in the manufacture of fire extinguisher foam, toothpaste, shampoos, liquid soaps, and cosmetics and to increase the foaming of beer and soft drinks.
Plant Families that contain significant saponins are: Amaryllidaceae, Convolvulaceae, Dioscoreaceae, Lamiaceae, Lecythidaceae, Liliaceae, Loganiaceae, Meliaeae, Menispermacea, Papilionaceae, Solanaceae, Sapindaceae, Sapotaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Solanaceae, Verbenaceae.
renwings, do you think the plant saponins would be broken down by the soil microbes in the earth before reaching the waterways if the greywater goes to the landscaping first? I could see where this may be a problem with grey water flowing to ponds. The grey water gorilla site's "bathtub plant water filters" might clear it out well enough. Would the saponins necessarily be more toxic than some of the other laundry products in popular use?
The soap nuts did a nice job cleaning my laundry for everything but the oily spots I had gotten on a pair of trousers. I haven't checked the Maggie's website to see what they suggest for that. There was only a hint of foam in the water when using the soapnuts.
If the soap nuts are gentler on the fibres, it would make the clothes last longer.
I honestly don't know. The soil in my area is extremely sandy and I live on a river. I would not use it unless there was a way of guaranteeing to me that I wasn't killing salmon. But that is just my scenario, I don't want to discourage people from using it if it works well for them and they're part of a closed or treated waste water system. I don't have any information about how or if saponin breaks down before entering the water system. I'm just erring on the side of caution, there is still a lot of research going on out there for me to really make a decision about how safe it really is for me to use in my situation.
When you say popular laundry products, I'm not sure what you are referring to. Most laundry soaps are now designed to be biodegradable, safe for septic systems and most don't use phosphates anymore. I'm not saying they're gilded examples of purity and safety, though. Don't get me wrong.