Why Ingredients List Matters?

Keep Dangerous Chemicals Out Of Your Household And Out Of You!

If you’re keen on improving your overall health and well-being, then you need to not only look under the hood in your body, but also in your bathroom cupboards.

As a consumer, you need to know that a lot of conventional product cleaners on the supermarket shelves are not safe for chronic use.  Cadmium, chrome, and other synthetic chemicals easily make their way inside your bloodstream through your skin.  This has numerous risk hazards to your health!

Even those that proclaim to be sustainable and safe are sometimes not what they say they are.

Though some brands may say they are ’green’ or are safe to use, they are far from being safe.  They may even contain words in their ingredients list like ’plant-based’ or ’natural ingredients’ but may not necessarily mean they are better for your health because it is still a largely unregulated industry. 

Similar to reading a Restaurant MENU, your awareness of what is used to create the product is as important as knowing if you shouldn't order something that would cause you an allergic reaction. If unsure of certain ingredients, we would recommend that you check, google, search the ingredient name to truly understand what they are prior to your commitment in purchasing the product. 

Killing me softly... Are my Cleaning Products Safe?

If you are using standard MNC manufactured home cleaning products, you probably are using very harsh chemicals to clean your home. These chemicals when inhaled are really bad for you. Don't believe it? Ask Google.

Hundreds of research and thousands of websites point to chemicals in everyday products that have very harmful effects on the human body. 

Here are a few pointers on how to select a safe and natural cleaning product for your home. Read the ingredients and make sure there are only naturally derived ingredients in that product. Some products are not even transparent in their ingredients and that should be your 1st BIG WARNING.

Look for plant derived ingredients as much as possible. Plant derived ingredients are typically natural and does not go through harsh chemical processing to be derived.

Biodegradable or eco-friendly means it is safe for the environment, but it does NOT mean it is safe for you.  

SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) and SLES (Sodium laureth sulfate), both plant derived is a very good example of plant derived ingredients that are biodegradable and eco-friendly, but causes skin irritations.

Absolutely nono to these chemical ingredients: 

Ammonia, bleach, triclosan, petroleum by products, phosphates, phalates

Look out also for warning signs when bottles state the product is Poison, Dangerous, Corrosive, Warning, etc.

Beware of what is not included in the labels, i.e. Fragrance is often a general term used to include all sorts of chemicals, including those that are really harmful to you. 

Finally, if in doubt, question the manufacturer. If you get a response that is vague and inconclusive, they typically are hiding something. 

Now, let's talk about Soapnut Republic

Most conventional cleaning products contain a ton of synthetic chemicals to act as the surfactant (the cleaning agent) or perfuming agent to make it smell nice.  But those very chemicals can leech into your skin and enter your bloodstream. 

We use a much higher proportion of all-natural ingredients especially because of the surfactant we use to clean which is derived from the locally-grown soapnut crop.

The fruit of the soapnut shrub is a native crop of China and India (sapindus) and its pulp is used to make soap by native peoples in Asia and Native Americans for thousands of years.

Soapnut Republic’s surfactant is 100% composed of Zhejiang-farmed soapnut.

This makes us not only natural and good for the environment but also supportive of local farms.

They are so effective in their natural state that in the past, a half dozen of soapnut berries would just be tossed in to a laundry basket and scrubbed!

For people with sensitive skin, eczema and other skin conditions; using commercial soaps and detergents, can exacerbate the problem, but the soapnut saponin (plant surfactant) appears to be hypoallergenic and mild on the skin.

Other natural ingredients are added to round out the product like coconut saponins, and citric acid to modify the pH (the acidic level).

But is it as effective as commercial cleaning products?

The answer is YES!  Bobby, our co-founder being a chemical engineer himself, used the ATP testing method to measure the level of bacterial activity of a bench that had a slab of raw chicken sitting on it.  He then applied the Soapnut Republic Fruit and Vegetable Wash on the bench and measured it again.  Soapnut Republic was the clear winner and this testing process (which went on for 1.5 years) was used to eventually come up with his highly effective formula for the product.  

Does this mean costs are higher?

Unfortunately, yes.  Because the whole process is more time consuming and the ingredients are more expensive, the manufacturing of the products are not as cheap as commercial cleaning products.  

All this tender-loving-care, results in a product that you know you can trust.  In fact, Kim and Bobby came up with this business idea because of their own genuine concern for their own babies’ health and well-being.  Not knowing the safety of their previous cleaning products, they took it upon themselves to invent a product that is not only safe but environmentally sustainable as well.

So if you’re trying to find ways to best protect your health and the health of your loved ones, give us a try!