I love these Soap Nuts -- I use them on everything from smelly gym socks to more delicate nightgowns. Each package comes with a small cloth bag in which you put about 3 nuts, then just throw the bag in with the laundry. Clothes come out clean and NO TOXINS or PERFUMES! A family size box gave me about 55 loads. For stain removing power I sometimes add Meyer's Oxygen powder, too, but for most laundry loads all you need are the soap nuts.

Also you can get a trial size for $2.99. All on eZoetic.com.

I got the sample and was sad to see it came with a cardboard top stapled to a plastic bag and with a tri-fold full color brochure in the padded envelope that sold an image and not the value of the product. I don't know if the boxed ones come in a recycled box or not, or how much extra packaging is used.

It annoys me when a company that sells an earth friendly product does not package it or ship it in an earth friendly way. I really don't like it when a company markets themselves as being an earth friendly company and then uses so much unnecessary and non-recyclable packing to get it to the user.

All the use instructions I needed were on the website, or they could have emailed me the instructions with my order confirmation.

I've tried three other companies and found other larger much more effective soap nuts from other companies. I think these are over priced for the quality.

I was amazed when I received these little nuts as a sample, could they really work....I was a non-believer at first and it took me a while to try them. Then I started thinking, these have been a traditional cleaning method in so many cultures long before conventional laundry soaps have been around so why not? I threw 3 of these guys in the bag they came in and tested them out......to my surprise they worked...they really worked!

I tried them in a load of whites and although they did clean, it just wasn't quite as good as I would've wanted...maybe a little non-chlorine whitener would've helped them along? I would definitely use them for my colors though and will probably buy them again. I would recommend them to anyone thinking of trying them.

I got the trial size of soap nuts and tried it out last weekend. The directions basically just say to put a 'handful' of soap nuts into the pouch and let 'er rip. The trial size came with 5 soap nuts and I didn't know exactly what a 'handful' was, so I just put all 5 in the pouch. It also didn't specify anything about water temperature. Since I always do my laundry in cold water to save energy (usually use Tide Coldwater detergent), I decided to try one load with the soap nuts out in cold water, and the second load with Tide Coldwater, and compared the results.

The big test was with one of my shirts which had some sort of weird stains. I pre-treated it with some Biokleen cleaner, then tried the soap nuts, but the stains didn't come out. I then put some more Biokleen on and tossed the shirt in with the Tide Coldwater, and they still didn't come out, so that test was a wash (pun intended).

All the other laundry came out equally clean with the two soaps. The laundry washed in Tide didn't smell like anything, whereas the soap nuts laundry had a very light but pleasant smell of 'freshness'. So overall I'd say the soap nuts performed just as well as conventional detergent.

In terms of cost, the soap nuts cost about $34 for 200+ loads if you buy them in bulk (the nuts are supposed to last for about 5 loads each), whereas Tide Coldwater costs about $52 for 200 loads. So not only do the soap nuts have the advantage of being completely natural, but they're also cheaper. If they continue to do as good of a job as the Tide, I may have to switch to soap nuts when my Coldwater detergent runs out. I'm impressed!