Quote Originally Posted by mellie View Post
I had that problem the first time too. The next time I made sure not to let it boil too hot, and just for 10 minutes. Then it smelled a lot nicer.

What is your ratio of nuts to water? Is it cleaning well? I gave up because my roots got so greasy with them. I'd like to use them for shampooing if I could get it to work! :-)
Hmm, that sounds exactly the way I did it. I used 7 desiliters of water (sorry, I have no idea how to convert that into cups or ounces) and 30 grams of nuts. I added nuts to cold water, then brought water to boil and immediately turned the heat on low setting. I kept the liquid on the stove for 9-10 minutes on low heat - it didn't boil anymore - and then let it cool in room temperature. I put the liquid into the fridge and used it to wash my hair the next day.

To wash I used about 2 desiliters of the liquid, spread it on my scalp, massaged, added water and massaged some more. I left it on my scalp for a few minutes while doing other things and then rinsed with warm water. The first time I did a chamomille rinse and the second time vinegar rinse but didn't notice any difference between them.

Soap nuts clean really well. Like I already mentioned I'm really pleased with the results. My scalp is oily so I didn't expect soapnut to clean this well. I have soft water, and have never had any problems with for example shampoo bars.

I have half of the nuts I bought left, maybe I should experiment with them. Perhaps I'll add them to hot water but don't boil, just let them steep for a while, see if that affects the smell. I'll report the results when I have time to test it.