If you haven’t yet tried our products, click here to order a trial pack

Once you’ve tried any of our products, send us your written review using the form below. We want to hear your detailed stories and experiences!

The judges are looking for reviews and testimonials that describe how you used the products, how they solved a problem or made something better. We love stories and your personal experiences with our products.

All reviews may be featured on our website. The very best review will be chosen as the grand prize winner to receive a $100 gift card to Amazon.

You may enter as many times as you like. If you want to review multiple products you must submit a separate entry for each product you wish to review if you would like them counted as separate entries.

For full info, see more rules at the bottom of the page.

*Any entries submitted with inappropriate or foul language will automatically be disqualified. 

*Eco Nuts will have all rights to use all testimonials submitted for this contest for marketing purposes.

*Contest is open to all US and Canadian Residents

*Contest Ends June 11 2016 and winners will be announced first week of July 2016

*No purchase necessary to enter

*Links to blogs, Amazon, or 3rd party websites will not be accepted. If you have previously left a review on another site, please send us the text (or copy/paste) in the entry form in order for your review to count.

You may hear about the ominous “plastic in the ocean” all the time. We hear that it threatens marine animals and kills birds. We know it’s there but I think many people don’t have a personal connection with it. You don’t see it so it’s not as easy to care about. You may have also heard about the Pacific garbage patch, a nebulous soup of plastic particles  that takes up an unknown but very large area within the pacific ocean that could be as large as or larger than the state of Texas.

But you may not have heard about Midway Atoll, a very remote group of islands north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.  Midway is a pretty good description for it – it’s halfway between North America and Asia. It’s about as far away as you can get from either continent.

It’s on these remote Islands that Laysan Albatrosses like to nest. These are pretty cool birds with a wingspan of over 6 feet and they can glide for years without ever touching down on land. They often stay with one mate for their entire life, which can be over a hundred years.

Unfortunately these birds that nest on one of the most remote island chains in the world are dying from eating plastic that they found in the ocean. They normally pick up squid and other sea creatures they find near the surface of the water but they unfortunately can’t distinguish between what they can eat and what they cannot. The albatross has been around for millions of years and never had to make this distinction. Then the birds return to the island and regurgitate the plastic, feeding it to their children. While the adults can regurgitate objects in their stomachs, the chicks do not have that reflex. So the result is that their stomachs fill up with more plastic than food. The plastic sometimes punctures their stomachs, or there simply isn’t enough room for real food.  The chicks die of dehydration, starvation or toxicity.

Below are some images that people may find graphic, so I am putting a warning here before you scroll down. These were taken by Chris Jordan who did a documentary about the plight of these birds on Midway.

The result is that the island is littered with the bodies of these birds, revealing the plastic that was in their bodies. You can see that even though the albatross decomposes, the plastic does not. What makes this even worse though is the likelihood of another albatross eating that same plastic and succumbing to the same fate.

To put into perspective how much plastic there is in this remote area of the Pacific, 20 tons of manmade debris and plastic ends up on Midway every year, 5 tons of that plastic is fed to the chicks.

In the entire world, it was estimated in 2015 that 9 million metric tons of plastic wound up in the ocean, (that’s 19,845,000,000 pounds! – that’s over 19 BILLION pounds). It’s estimated that by 2025 just 10 years from now, the annual cumulative output of plastic will be 155 million metric tons into the ocean PER YEAR.  By 2050 it’s estimated that plastic will be found in 99% of all seabirds.

This is a very serious problem that’s snowballing out of control. The only way to curb this is by empowering people to make conscious buying decisions away from plastic. Just because you put your plastic in the trash or recycling doesn’t mean that it goes to the landfill or gets recycled. This is a very common misconception. 50% of all the plastic we produce is used once and then thrown away, and Americans only recycle about 9% of their plastic waste. The only way to actually prevent plastic from going into the ocean is to not buy it in the first place.

Eco Nuts is proud to be as plastic free as we can get. We use paperboard and concentrated formulas packaged in aluminum specifically because we want to be the change. Our products have replaced over 1 million plastic bottles.

Baby steps. Do what YOU can. Make small lifestyle changes. Spread the word. Cause a chain reaction. Better the planet.

People often wonder since the Soap Nuts are brown if that causes staining. The answer is no – the soap berry color does not cause brown marks on clothes. If the bag containing the soap nuts is wedged in an overstuffed machine, some of the tannins can bleed through the bag causing a small but easily removed spot that is yellow or beige in color (see easy removal suggestions at bottom). There are, however, many causes of brown spots in laundry, and none have to do with soap nuts. I’ve outlined the top causes of brown spots in laundry with some tips on how to treat these stains below

1. If anyone in your family uses any lotion or medicine that contains benzoyl peroxide, this can cause brown spots on certain colors and fabrics when they are washed. Commonly this can be on towels or wash cloths that get added to the laundry hamper and can sometimes deposit or transfer onto colored clothes. This can also get on sheets if the lotion or medicine was applied before going to sleep.

2. Weak concentrations of chlorine bleach can cause brown spotting on darker clothes. This can happen from residue from previous loads, and sometimes concentrations of Chlorine from city water.

3. Sometimes if you are using washing powder in other loads and it isn’t dissolving completely, that can cause brown spotting.  If you think this may be the case, try cleaning out the dispenser and put powder directly in the bottom of the machine before adding clothes when you do use powder.

4. Brown spotting can also be caused by rust or oil within the machine. If you think this may be the case, you can use a rust remover and the spots should come out (see below).

5. There are bacteria that chemically reacts with older iron pipes. While any newer homes contain PVC piping, city water is often supplied using iron pipes. When house or city lines are disrupted by maintenance work (or an earthquake) sometimes this rust/bacteria can be shaken loose and cause spotting on clothes.

6. Areas of drought can cause dark brown sediment to settle in pipes which can transfer to clothes.

7. Check the rubber seal on the door of the machine, sometimes a rusty object lodged in there (like a coin) can transfer rust (or a rust color) to clothing.

8. Brown marks can also be a sign of the inner bearing seal in the machine being split or corroded, the spots you are seeing are actually grease from the bearings. Treat as a grease stain (see below).

9. Brown marks can be a sign of sludge buildup in the machine which may mean the drain pump is not functioning properly. If you have an HE machine, you may need to clean your pump filter.

10. Mold can cause brown or dark stains on clothes. (see below to treat).

11. A stray marker or crayon in the machine can cause stains.

To help prevent spotting in general, never overload the washer and make sure the clothes and soap have plenty of room for proper agitation.

Treating  Stains:

For Plant-based stains:

If you believe you have brown stains that are of plant origin, a soak in white vinegar or a simple over the counter enzyme stain remover will do the trick. The use of an oxygen laundry booster will also help. Let air dry completely and check the stain before putting it in the dryer. You may have to re-treat.

For Mold Stains:

Soak in Oxygen booster for several hours and then launder. The oxygen will kill the mildew and the washing will remove it. Let air dry completely and check the stain before putting it in the dryer. You may have to re-treat. Putting items in full-sun outside will also help to bleach away the stain.

Grease Stains:

Treat grease stains with a grease remover, like dawn dish soap. Rub it in gently and let sit at least 10 minutes before washing. Check the stain after you wash before putting it in the dryer, and if necessary, retreat with dish soap again. You may have to hang dry the garment to make absolutely sure the stain is out.  The dryer can set that stain in forever. Another method for mild grease stains is to rub chalk on the stain or sprinkle with corn starch and let sit. Chalk and/or corn starch will absorb the grease out of the fabric and then will wash off.

Rust Stains:

If you need to remove rust stains from clothes, make sure you do not dry them when you notice they have come out of the dryer. Heat will set the rust stains and makes them nearly impossible to eliminate from any type of clothing. Rust stains cannot be removed with normal washing. Use a commercial rust remover such as Iron-Out or Rit rust remover. These items contain hydrofluoric or oxalic acid compound that loosens rust from most fabrics. Make sure these clothes are thoroughly rinsed because any acid remaining will deteriorate clothes. In addition, these rust removers are only intended for colorfast material or white clothing.

To Clean your machine and pump filter, check out our blog post here for easy directions.

All soap nuts start out green on the tree in fall, then turn yellow or bright orange in winter when they are harvested. The soap nuts slowly turn a dark reddish brown to dark brown over time and will eventually turn black if not stored or packaged properly. Once again, there are variations in the colors that can differ by region so this is approximate. While very old black soap nuts still contain saponin, they may not hold up for more than a few washes. In this photo, the 5 year old black soap nuts were packaged and stored improperly.

To properly store soap nuts, keep them in a cool dry place away from moisture. For long term storage, keep them in an airtight or vacuum sealed container.

1. Whiten and Brighten your laundry: Add two tablespoons of Eco Nuts Eco Friendly Oxygen Booster to every load of laundry.

2. Presoak your laundry for tough stains or to tackle dingy whites. Add 6-12 tablespoons of Oxygen Booster to your top loading washing machine or to a basin and then add hot water. Once the oxygen booster is fully dissolved, add your linens and laundry and let sit at least 6 hours to overnight. Then launder as ususal.

3. Erase kitchen stains. For stained plasticware including cutting boards, bottles, coffee pots, dishes, dish rags and dish towels add 2-4 tablespoons of Oxygen Booster to the container to be cleaned and soak for at least 15 minutes.

4. Freshen your drains & disposals. Dissolve 2 tablespoons of Oxygen Booster in 1 cup of hot water and pour down the drains once a month to clean and deodorize. Let sit in the drains overnight for maximum cleaning.

5. Keep Your Bathroom Sparkling.  For toilets add a few tablespoons of Oxygen Booster, wait 15 minutes then scrub. For porcelain sinks, bathtubs, and showers, make a paste by mixing oxygen booster and hot water together. Apply to the surface and let it sit for 20 minutes, scrub, and rinse.

6. Remove Mold from Your shower curtains soak in 2 tablespoons of Oxygen Booster per gallon of hot water and soak overnight

7. Deodorize your diaper pail. Add 2-4 tablespoons of Oxygen Booster to a few cups of hot water and use to clean out the interior of the pail. Rinse, wipe down, and let dry before adding diapers.

8. Clean that Mildew off your lawn furniture. For lawn furniture add 2 tablespoons of Oxygen Booster to hot water, scrub, wait 15 minutes, then rinse.

9. Wash your mops: For mops add 6 tablespoons of Oxygen Booster to a gallon of hot water, soak overnight then rinse.

10. Refresh your Fridge: To eliminate mold, mildew and other organic stains from your refrigerator interior, add 4 tablespoons of Oxygen Booster to 4 cups of water and apply this solution with a soft cleaning cloth. Let sit for 10-12 minutes, wipe and rinse.

Do you have other ways you use our Oxygen Booster? Please share them with us in the comments!

Want to purchase our Eco Friendly Oxygen Booster? Click here!

1. Donate.  The companies we work with employ over 200 people in Kathmandu, and they are now trying to supply basic needs to their staff and their families, including shelter, food, water, and medicine. So far six people who work for us have lost their homes. Two people we still have not heard from yet, but we are hopeful. One of our supplier’s factories is currently being used as a shelter.

We want to help provide support to our extended “Eco Nuts” family in Nepal to get them whatever they need.

We have set up a GoFundMe page in order to collect funds for them. All funds will be sent directly to our contacts in the area to use for food, supplies, shelter, and other urgent needs.

Your prayers and support are much appreciated. We will provide updates on how funds are being used here and on our company’s Facebook page.

But that’s not all. We urge our customers to please continue giving to established relief/aid organizations in Nepal. Donating through our campaign is not tax deductible and there are many organizations helping in different ways, and all are important.

2. Donate to nonprofits. 

Some charities that are on the ground providing help are:

The Nepal Red Cross Society   is providing first aid, search and rescue, blood to medical facilities and support to first responders. Here is its online donation link

CARE is providing temporary shelter, ready-to-eat meals, water purification and latrine construction. You can learn more about their relief plans here or go directly to their donation page to help.

Handicap International is providing wheelchairs and assistance to local hospitals which are overwhelmed. The organization is focused on making sure survivors receive the care they need to avoid developing permanent disabilities. You can go online to directly support their Nepal Earthquake Response.

UNICEF is working with the government and other partners to meet children’s immediate needs in water and sanitation, protection, health and nutrition. You can help by donating online.

Global Giving has created a Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund to immediately help both local Nepalese nonprofits and international aid organizations. Supporters can donate online or text GIVE NEPAL to 80088 to donate $10.

 Team Rubicon Has a team of surgeons and medical staff on the ground in Nepal doing rescue medical work. You can help by donating  online.

3. Purchase Eco Nuts products.  A portion of every sale goes directly to Nepal and gives people a steady income stream to support their families. Long term, giving people a job and way to support themselves is extremely vital towards getting people back on their feet and back to normalcy. We’ve already heard from them that they are anxious to go back to work and hope to be up and running as soon as the dust settles.

Here are some easy fixes for a better smelling machine and fresh laundry.

Have an Open-Door Policy: 

That door is the only way for moisture to escape.  Leaving it open ensures proper air circulation (and evaporation). Mold won’t grow without moisture. Simply keep your washing machine door open when not in use.

Clean The Gasket:

Lint and hair can collect in the rubber gasket seal around the opening.  In some machines there’s a flap large enough that socks can sometimes get wedged in there. Debris that is trapped may not dry out without excellent air circulation, so once in a while it’s a good idea to wipe down the seal and check between the folds, under and around it for any slime, gunk, or miscellanea that may have collected there.  Wipe it down with a weak bleach solution or hot soapy water. Once again, leave your door open between washes to dry it out.

Clean the pump filter:

Many washing machine companies recommend you clean this out once per month.  If you can’t remember the last time you did it (or never did it at all) this may be the cause of all kinds of odor havoc in your machine. The majority of smelly laundry problems in front loaders are solved by cleaning this filter and leaving the door open in between washes. 

This filter collects hair, lint and leftover detergent and stays dark and moist – it’s a mold playground. What’s worse is this causes you to be washing your clothes with stinky moldy water. Your clothes may smell like sour milk or a damp basement when they come out of the machine.  Cleaning this filter is super easy and takes 5 minutes  – anyone can do it!

On the front of your machine, there is a small door. You don’t need any tools, it usually just pops off or pulls open easily. Open this door, and remove or unscrew the rubber stopper.  There may also be a drain tube. Be prepared for water to come out!  Then remove the filter, clean it out, and replace the filter, the tube, and the panel. If you can’t find the panel, consult your machine owner’s manual or call the company to find out how you can clean the pump filter.

Keep your Machine Clean:

About once a month run a hot water cycle with some bleach. As part of your laundry machine cleaning maintenance routine, periodically clean out and wipe down the detergent dispenser cups as well.

Avoid liquid fabric softener

Eco Nuts laundry products are fine to use and will soften clothes naturally without added fabric softeners. Regular chemical fabric softeners can leave a waxy residue on the machine interior that can contribute to mold growth. Eco Nuts laundry products do not leave this kind of residue.

You may be curious as to why soap forms bubbles at all, and understanding what they are will also help you understand why they don’t mean anything. I wrote about how soap works in my surfactants post, but I will also explain it here a little more briefly.  Soap molecules have two ends kind of like a magnet. One end is attracted to water (think of this as the sticky side) and the other is repelled by water (but is attracted to dirt). Bubbles are formed because soap molecules will surround the water molecules with the “sticky” water-loving side pointed towards the water and the repellant sides pointed away.

So when you are looking at a soap bubble, you are seeing a thin layer of water sandwiched between soap molecules.  No matter what shape the bubble is initially, it will go into a sphere because that shape has less surface area which takes less energy to form (making it the easiest shape to form).

Now that you know that suds are just how soap molecules make a water/soap sandwich on the surface of the water, it’s easier to understand how this has nothing to do with cleaning clothes. All a bubble shows is how attracted the soap molecule is to water, and not how attracted it is to dirt. And while seeing a lack of suds in your machine may make you think there isn’t enough soap or there is no cleaning going on, just remember that different types of soap molecules make different types of bubbles. Some soaps hold bubbles longer or more easily than others. Some types of soaps make larger bubbles, some make smaller, some hardly make bubbles at all. Bubbles can also be affected by other ingredients also in the water. There are other factors that can impact the size of bubbles. Relating to laundry, people washing in hard water will see fewer suds than people washing in soft water. Temperature is also a factor as bubbles don’t form easily in cold water. 

In the case of HE machines, suds can be a bad thing. HE (High Efficiency) Machines require low sudsing detergents. This is because more suds can interfere with the tumbling action of the machine. HE machines rely on agitation – clothes tumbling and rubbing against one another – to clean. If a layer of bubbles forms between clothes, they aren’t going to agitate properly. With lots of bubbles, the clothes can form a bubbly layer of cushioning in between them, and if they are gliding instead of rubbing, they won’t be cleaned as well.

It is because HE machines were designed around the agitation of fabrics that they also do not use as much water to clean. If your detergent is labeled as an HE detergent (Like Eco Nuts is), you aren’t going to see the same level of suds as a traditional detergent – and that’s nothing to worry about because it’s the soap in the water that is doing the cleaning. Remember the other side of the soap molecule – the side that hates water and loves dirt? That part works when the soap is in the water attracting to dirt on your clothes, holding onto the dirt and rinsing out.  Detergents that are labeled for HE can also be used just fine in regular machines, you won’t see as many suds but your clothes will still get just as clean – HE detergent just means low or no suds.

For more reading and photography credits:

http://www.cleaninginstitute.org/assets/1/page/he.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_bubble

http://blog.sciencegeekgirl.com/2009/05/02/why-does-soap-form-bubbles/

http://econutssoap.com/laundry-science-101-surfactants/

http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/15E.html

There will be some fun baby shower ideas and tutorials posted all week featuring Eco Nuts and other cloth diaper products on The Eco Chic blog; as well as Dirty Diaper Laundry, The Eco-Friendly Family, The Cloth Diaper Report, Change-Diapers, and Cloth Diaper Geek.  

In addition to a host of great shower ideas, Eco Nuts is one of the Fluffin’ Awesome sponsors who have donated over $2,000 in prizes with 60+ winners!

Sound like fun? We thought so!

For your chance to enter this giveaway, visit this page or any of the above mentioned blogs for the entry form, August 4-8th only!

If you haven’t yet tried our products, click here to order a trial size of Eco Nuts Organic Laundry Soap for FREE while supplies last  (just pay shipping).

Once you’ve tried any of our products, send us your written review using the form below. We want to hear your detailed stories and experiences!

The judges are looking for reviews and testimonials that describe how you used the products, how they solved a problem or made something better. We love stories and your personal experiences with our products.

All reviews may be featured on our website, and the 3 best ones will be chosen to win gift cards to Amazon and be featured in our social media and on our website.

The very best review will be chosen as the grand prize winner to receive a $100 gift card to Amazon and 2 runner ups will receive $25 gift cards to Amazon.

You may enter as many times as you like. If you want to review multiple products you must submit a separate entry for each product you wish to review if you would like them counted as separate entries.

For full info, see more rules at the bottom of the page.

*Any entries submitted with inappropriate or foul language will automatically be disqualified. 

*Eco Nuts will have all rights to use all testimonials submitted for this contest for marketing purposes.

*Contest is open to all US and Canadian Residents

*Free samples are only available while supplies last

*Contest Ends July 31st 2014 and winners will be announced first week of August 2014

*No purchase necessary to enter

*Links to blogs, Amazon, or 3rd party websites will not be accepted. If you have previously left a review on another site, please send us the text (or copy/paste) in the entry form in order for your review to count.