Look what came...

in our mail today! I've been requesting free samples like crazy lately. They make a nice change from the bills, junk mail, and credit card offers for Bob Smith that usually show up in our mailbox. The Kashi and Fiber One cereals are both Wal-Mart samples, and I've requested a few other things that should be arriving eventually. As for finding out about free samples (and other good deals) I have Freebies 4 Mom and iMommies saved to my bloglines, along with several other links. I've used those to find out about several good coupon deals, even though I haven't gotten into the whole CVS thing. And, as for the little brown bag that I haven't said anything about...well, those are Soap Nuts. "Soap WHAT?" you say. Yeah, soap nuts. I won a free sample of them from the bloggy giveaways that I entered a few weeks ago. I've been thinking about trying them for a while, but just couldn't convince myself to order some. See, we've used Tide Free pretty much forever, since I seem to be allergic to almost anything else, including fabric softener and dryer sheets. Problem is that Tide Free is getting more and more difficult to find, and when I DO find it, its more expensive than anything else. So I've been looking at our options for switching to a more natural detergent. Soap Nuts was one of my contenders, based on the naturalness of it, frugality (the nuts aren't very expensive and can be reused several times), and ease of storage (they come in a cute little bag).
Well, while I was writing I had a load of laundry going, and I must say I'm impressed. I used 3 whole soap nuts plus a few small pieces (we have pretty hard water), and switched the washing machine temperature back to warm. All of the whites look about as bright as I'm used to, and the clothes smell nice and clean, but without any chemical-y fragrance to them. The nuts do have a bit of a smell to them (woodsy mostly), but the clothes didn't pickup that smell at all. Really, they just smelled like water. We don't usually have any major stain issues, so right now that's not a factor. My only (minor) concern is being able to find the little bag of nuts when changing the laundry over, unless its ok to go in the dryer. That, and figuring out a way to keep track of which nuts are in use- the website says to store them in something air tight so they don't absorb moisture and get sticky, but they also need to dry after doing a load of laundry. All in all, those are pretty minor concerns. Let's just say that when we finish this last box of Tide I may be ordering us some Soap Nuts.