Soapnuts and Saponin

Peggy Sue · Post: # 70135Post **Peggy Sue** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 7:43 am

I don't know if there are any chemists out there? But I used to work in a lab and we used Saponin in one of the processes. We were warned it was an arrowroot poison and to be VERY careful using it.

Sice saponin is in soap nuts I'm just a bit worried, we are asked to squeeze the nuts after using them each time to release more saponin.

Does anyone have some nice reasuring news that they are so dilute it's not a problem?

Mind you the doag ate 4 once and didn't look poorly

been bugging me so I thought I'd ask

Silver Ether · Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:08 am

Hm interesting this ... I would appreciate any info too ...
I have googles and came up with this

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

My son has been using them now for a couple of months a0 because of green issues... b0 because he is an excema sufferer... and the excema has suddenely got worse he is relating it to the use of Soap nuts even though everthing we read say they are great for excema sufferers ..???

Martin · Post: # 70148Post **Martin** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:29 am

I steer clear of it - tried a shampoo containing natural saponins, and had a dreadefully itchy scalp, even after rinsing - didn't use it again!

Cassiepod · Mon Sep 03, 2007 11:40 am

Saponin is the name of a family of chemicals rather than one single chemical. ( like you get cheeses but also get varieties of chesses but they're all cheesy). I haven't investigated but imagine that toxicity and irritancy characteritics will very with the type of saponin (ie you like cheddar but can't stand stilton). Digitalis (foxgloves) and squill belong to this family and are toxic. Judging by the real tox study on the dog mentioned above, the soap nuts are not toxic at 'naturally occurring' (?)levels.

Just because a chemical is naturally occurring does not mean it's good for you. Just because it's man made does not mean it's worse than the natural alternative. The eczema example being a case in point some pepolae will be more sensitve than otheres (even within eczema sufferers)

Not all chemicals are nasty (spot the chemist!), but should always be viewed and handled with caution whatever their source.

Peggy Sue · Post: # 70171Post **Peggy Sue** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:58 pm

Not sure now whether to stop panicing or stop using them

Silver Ether · Mon Sep 03, 2007 4:02 pm

Well I shall continue to use them unless anyone has problems because I like the way they do the washing ... and my lad already decided to stop them to see what happens. I will pas on the info guys .thanks ...

catalyst · Post: # 70220Post **catalyst** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 10:29 am

and all humans are different too - some of us will presumably find soapnuts/saponins kinder on our skin, while others would find manmade detergents better.

on the subject of soapnuts, i've just found a supplier of seeds for the trees, and will be trialling them next spring. perhaps in a few years we'll be selling soapnuts. i am also planning to try soapwort and soap lilly (although seeds for soap lilly seem to be illusive).