Watch out, Woolite Dark, Denham is marching in on your turf! The Amsterdam based brand introduced a new campaign for washing your jeans–Soap Nuts. They may look new to you but hippies have been (barely) doing their laundry with these dried berries for years.
To use, them you put a few of the nuts in a little cinch sack (whose resemblance to the human anatomy directly mirrors its name) and toss it either in the tub with your jeans or the machine with a load of laundry. The nuts then release a sudsy chemical called saponin, which works a lot like a detergent to break down dirt and oil.
This may sound like a crock, but I can attest that soap nuts are the real deal. I found a coupon online for a free pound of them when I was in college, so I sent in my info and two weeks later I had my own soap nuts and nut sack. They’re kinda sticky, they have this weird fruity smell, but they work–they’re organic, hypoallergenic, gentle on your clothes, and that pound got me through an entire year (although that may speak more to how little I did laundry than their effectiveness).
All you have to do is toss a handful of nuts in that little sack and drop it in with your load. All my friends thought I was weird, but I have been vindicated. You hear that Eric and Will–you’re the weird ones!!
You can’t buy soap nuts at Denham’s website just yet, they’re saving them for their 2015 Fall collection, but if you’re ready to join the cult today, you can pick up a pound for $27 at Amazon.
