Doing laundry can be a tiring routine at home. As a result, we would normally go for a “stronger” detergent. In turn, it is stronger chemical.
As mentioned before, most watershed is being polluted with unthinkable materials. Detergent is one of the of front runners. Imagine every household do laundry once a week. Number of households in US was 126 million in 2017. Detergent had been flushed into our watershed over 6.5 billion times a year. That is not even counting anywhere in the rest of the world.
Wait a minute, so how did our parents do laundry before chemical detergent was even invented? Depends on how far back you are looking at.
Of course, soap is one of the most common cleaner before the era of detergent. While there is also another natural soap came in handy, grown on shrub or tree.
There are twelve spices of the plant, native to warm temperate to tropical regions in both old world and new world: sapindus. Fruit pulp is used to make soap. The name sapindus can be divided into “sapo”, meaning soap and “indicus”, meaning India in Latin word, commonly known as soapberry or soapnut.
The soapnuts contain sapponins, that has surfactant properties and having been used for washing by ancient Asian people and native Americans. What is good about it? Place 4-5 nuts in a small bag. It can be used up to 10 times. A small amount of nuts can let you wash a year’s loads of clothes.
What If I Got Stains On The Clothes?
Good question. Then use two very common items easily found at home: vinegar or baking soda.
For vinegar, soak the stain in white vinegar for 30 minutes, then wash it with cold water.
For baking soda, mix one part of baking soda with two part of cold water in a bowl, soak into the water for up to 40 minutes and rinse in water to wipe of remaining residue.
Go nuts doing laundry!
Life is simple, don’t make it complicated!