How To Make & Use Homemade Powder Soap Nuts Laundry Detergent

Homemade Powdered Soap Nut Laundry Detergent

The first time I ever used soap nuts for laundry detergent I was blown away.  Then I learned you can also powder soap nuts to use as a homemade laundry detergent and my mind was blown again!

There is a small inconvenience to using soap nuts, a trade off I’m totally fine with.  The inconvenience is that you have a little bag you need to keep track of between loads, mushy husks to throw out or compost, and you have to make sure the bag is going to dry out or it will mold between loads.

Powdering soap nuts should have all the benefits of using whole soap nuts without those few drawbacks.

So without further ado here’s how to make soap nut powder for laundry detergent.

If you are interested in soap nuts and other homemade laundry solutions, also check out my whole soap nut laundry detergent post.

What You Need

Here’s all you need to make this awesomely simple homemade powder laundry detergent:

• Soap Nuts (I’m using NaturOli soap nuts)

Regardless of what soap nuts you get, I recommend getting organic soap nuts from a reputable seller.  Some cheaper brand soap nuts just aren’t as good and won’t last as long as high quality soap nuts will.

That’s it for ingredients!  You’ll also need something to grind/powder your soap nuts to make your homemade powdered laundry detergent.

Grab some Soap Nuts

The first thing you need to do is grab yourself a handful of soap nuts.  It doesn’t really matter how many, just don’t over stuff your grinder using the max fill line as a guide.

Make sure you get some good high quality soap nuts like these.  I haven’t gotten any bad ones myself, but I’ve heard of some people getting some pretty weak soap nuts that don’t soap very well.

Just check out the reviews on amazon or where ever you’re purchasing from to help you decide on the best soap nuts.

How to Make Soap Nut Powder

For this batch I used an old coffee grinder which worked really well.  You can also use a food processor to powder your soap nuts for the laundry detergent.

Grind away at your soap nuts until they have been turned into a nice powder.  When you grind up your soap nuts they will actually give off a nice fruity smell which I was kind of surprised by because they have a vinegary smell when they’re whole.

Wash Some Dirty Laundry

Then all you have to do is scoop a 2 -3 teaspoons of your homemade powdered soap nut laundry detergent into your washing machine along with your clothes and you’re good to go!  Wash your clothes as you normally would.

How Well Does Soap Nut Powder Work for Washing Clothes?

Soap nuts works great.  From day one I was skeptical of soap nuts working for anything, especially as a homemade laundry detergent.

But I am still amazed each time I was my laundry by how well they work.  After having used whole soap nuts for washing laundry this powder works exactly as I had expected.

There is one very big down side to powdering soap nuts for laundry detergent instead of simply using them whole.  You can’t reuse them.  When you use whole soap nuts, you can use them up to 7 or 8 times before you have to throw them out.

When using powdered soap nuts for laundry detergent you use roughly the same number of soap nuts to wash a load of clothes, but you can’t reuse them for multiple loads.  In the end powdering soap nuts causes you to go through them much faster.

Regardless of which way you want to go, powdered or whole, pick up some soap nuts from Amazon, and give them a try, they’re great!  Soap nuts are by far my favorite homemade natural laundry detergent!

You might want to check out my post on Using Whole Soap Nuts For Homemade Laundry Detergent too.

If you liked this post and found it helpful please share it, thanks!

– Lance