Chestnuts into Soap
How to make a Decent Soap from Horse Chestnuts
The horse chestnut, Aesculus Hippocastanum. Found in many parks and lining many streets throughout temperate climates across the world from America and Great Britain to the southern hemisphere in New Zealand. The seeds have been used for children’s games in Britain called conkers.
Have you thought of using them for soap? Horse chestnuts are loaded with saponins. These substances are soapy and also toxic. For soap, it would work just fine for your clothes.
In the front yard of our cabin on Whidbey Island we have an ancient horse chestnut tree that has been there since my grandfather planted it in the early 1900s. I think the tree is at least a century old if not a little older. One of our neighbors calls it the ‘tree of life’. Dogs love to sit in the shade during the hot times of the summer. Hummingbirds perch in its branches waiting to take a drink of hummingbird nectar. As children, I and my sisters used to climb that tree and so did the cats.
Each year it drops a large number of chestnuts on the ground. We rake the leaves and search for the chestnuts on the ground. I had never thought I could use them for anything but to plant as a future tree. We don’t have enough property to really grow more trees. This one stands as tall as our two-story house. But making soap is something I think I can get into. It is part of my move to use less from a grocery store and to create less waste.
I found the soap works well enough on my clothes. I used it for my socks to start, then shirts and so forth. It is a milder soap than what is produced for consumption and sold at the local grocer. Haven’t tried this on my jeans yet so big bulky items not quite sure how it would be fair. If you want stronger soap just raise the ratio of chestnuts to water and that should give the concentration you want.
Following is the method I used. I do not offer measurements because part of the joy in creating something yourself is experimenting too. The more chestnuts used the higher the concentration of saponins in the liquid. This would mean more cleaning power or just useless in your machine.
Enjoy
Shell and then chop the chestnuts
Put the shelled nuts into a bowl or large container for liquid
Pour some boiling water over the chestnut pulp. Enough to more than cover the pulp and let sit for 2 hours overnight.
Strain the chestnut pieces from the soapy water
Pour soapy water into a jar of a spray bottle for use.
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