Stumble It!EcoKnits – Soap nuts for Wool.
EcoKnits is run by a friend of mine and we’ve been talking soap nuts for wool washing.
Proper wool is tricky to wash safely without felting, shrinking or matting it nastily and ruining that perfect, soft and squishy scarf/hat/whatever you made for your best friend for Christmas.
Now Kris at Eco Knits sells lovely natural yarns and some are hand spun, hand dyed and generally fairly exclusive and very nice indeed. There are wood and bamboo needles, notions and other knitting type things to drool over but I’m considering that lovely yarn. When you’ve bought some, made something with it then you want that something to stay as gorgeous as the day it was finished don’t you? But things get mucky and need cleaning now and then, and that yarn was cool or hand wash only, and as the yarn was hand dyed then maybe the colour could fade?
Considering that soap nuts are the most natural and gentle cleaning agent I know of, it stands to reason thay they’ll do the job for you. I do know that soap nuts preserve colour better than modern powders that have a harsher action and they definitely don’t leave any residue in the fibres of whatever you’re washing. They release saponin from 30 degrees, so a cool machine wash will be fine, or you can use the bag and shells, or some soap nut solution, in a hand wash too.
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January 8th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Hiya Sarah,
Do you reckon that you would need to rinse them out? The reason I ask is that I’ve seen some adverts for wool wash that doesn’t need rinsing, and sometimes it is that rinsing and wringing out that can felt or bobble lovely knits too. Not sure how natural this wool wash is (and do you think I can remeber the name > find a link to it now!!??) and am sure that soapnuts would be a better bet for woolies in general.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Hmm, I was thinking about the woolens you can put in the machine more than hand washing. I reckon you could swish the soap nut solution (and dirt) out in a bowl/sink of warm water and that’d get enough of the saponin out.
Seeing as I don’t take my soap nuts out of my washing machine through the rinse cycle, there’s no reason to rinse it much.
Give it a try and let me know what happens?
January 8th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I will do and let you know the results!