Is Nellie’s Laundry Soda any good?
Our family has been blessed with sensitive skin and allergies, which means having the wrong detergent can cause irritable skin and breathing issues. Of course, having to wear masks all the time, we need to find something that will be a safe item for our family while they are at school. This caused us to start looking for an all-natural laundry soda. We decided to try Nellie’s All-Natural Laundry Soda and find out if it would help us with our issues. Here is our Nellie Laundry Soda review.
- Leave clothes feeling soft, fresh and clean without any residue or harsh chemical.
- Non-toxic, biodegradable, hypoallergenic, vegan, leaping bunny certified.
- Free From: SLS, SLES, gluten, phosphates, fragrance and chlorine.
- Nellie’s rinses completely clear, leaving nothing behind. No perfumes, no optical brighteners, no solid synthetics.
- Safe for front loading HE and standard washing machines.
History of Nellie’s Laundry Soda
It’s a good idea to know a little bit about the company whose product you are looking into. It turns out Nellie was a real person and the mother of the owner and founder James Roberts. They believe in simplicity and honesty and set out to build a cleaning company around it.
He has done a good job with Nellie’s and in trying to create cleaning products that are both green and safe. All of their items are eco-friendly and hypoallergenic, which is great for anyone with allergies or skin sensitivities. They make several different products.
What does Nellie’s Laundry make?
Their main product is laundry soda, a powdered natural detergent rather than the more common liquid detergents you see on the market. This is because they can pack more loads per container this way. Giving you more value in your purchase.
They also have a plant-based Oxygen Brightener to handle the harder stains. They can handle any mess that gets thrown at them. This can be used with their all natural powdered laundry soda.
Making a safe soda to use on baby clothes (he developed something gentle enough for babies when he had his granddaughter) helped them create a second line of Baby Laundry Soda. They can be used on cloth diapers (which if you have ever tried to clean cloth diapers with a baby who has sensitive skin, you know this is a good thing. This washing soda uses different ingredients than the regular laundry soda and has more natural ingredients.
Another thing I liked about this company doing my research was that they don’t test on animals, which is why they have the Leaping Bunny certification on their products.
Make sure to grab our house cleaning checklist when you are done!
What are the ingredients in Nellie’s All Natural Laundry Soda?
In the world of green housekeeping, the train of thought goes the fewer ingredients that go into an item, the better it is for you. This is definitely the case we found when doing our Nellie’s all natural laundry soda review. Its four ingredients are:
- Sodium Carbonate
- Sodium Chloride
- Linear Alcohol Ethoxylate
- Sodium Metasilicate
While sodium carbonate and sodium chloride are two common ingredients (washing soda and table salt), the other two ingredients need to be properly rinsed off of your clothes before drying.
The all natural laundry soda is biodegradable and hypoallergenic. It’s also non-GMO and non-toxic.
Another plus for us is that it is septic safe; having a house with a septic tank means that you have to be a little more thoughtful about what goes down your drains, and this is a huge plus for us.
What is more important is what is not in Nellie’s All Natural Laundry Soda. There are no SLS, SLES, gluten, phosphates, fragrance, and chlorine.
How does Nellie’s Laundry Soda price compare to other laundry detergents?
Price-wise I’m happy with the all laundry detergent powder. It’s an Amazon Choice product and has a good cost per load, around $0.19 cents. The average price for a laundry load is $0.21 for liquid laundry detergent, making Nellie’s laundry soda on par with other brands. Considering it was better on our sensitive skin it’s worth the extra 2 cents per load.
Can I use the laundry soda in an HE washing machine?
Yes, you can use both the laundry soda and the brightener in high-efficiency washing machines. It has been certified for this, and they also work in top-loading machines and completely dissolve in both hot and cold water.
How do you use Nellie’s laundry detergent?
Using Nellie’s all-natural laundry soda couldn’t be easier. Put 1 tablespoon of Nellie’s into your washing machine for a regular size load and wash according to your garments instructions. Like all detergent, it is best to test to make sure that it doesn’t bleed or fade before using. 
What sizes can I buy Nellie’s laundry soap?
Nellie’s washing soap comes in a variety of different sizes. If you want to get started with a small amount, they have a 50 loads bag:
Non-toxic, vegan powdered laundry detergent soap for a hundred loads.
Or you can get the 500 load bucket which is the best value per load.
What other laundry products do Nellie’s sell?
Dryer Balls
They also have these cute Lamby dryer balls made with 100% New Zealand wool. Dryer balls are a great way to get your clothes feeling light and fluffy without using fabric sheets in your dryer. We’ve been using dryer balls for years and love them.
Wow Stick (Stain Remover)
If you have stubborn stains, then you can buy this WOW stick stain remover. Let’s be honest, we can all use one of these in the laundry room. There are definitely some stains that are harder to get out and this is a great stain remover.
Baby Laundry Soda
Of course, there’s also the baby laundry soda that we mentioned earlier, which is a little bit more expensive per load, but I guess that’s due to the different ingredients. If you have a newborn or skin issues giving these a try might be the answer to your skin issues.
As well there is the Oxygen Brightener to brighten your loads.
And there is Nellie’s Wrinkle B Gone to get out the wrinkles.
Nellie Laundry Soda Reviews Final Thoughts
The laundry soda itself has been great for cleaning our clothes and brightening them and removing stains (check out how to get sticker residue off clothes if you have some sticky issues). The product does have good stain-fighting power and has done well with our white loads.
One of the more impressive things about Nellie’s Laundry Soda is the reviews that it gets with over 600 people reviews. It has a nearly perfect record of 4.8 out of 5 on Amazon; you can read people’s reviews here.
Of course, not all sensitive skin is going to work with this detergent. But it may be worth a try if you are running out of options. I’ve found it to be the best laundry detergent for kitchen towels.
I think the big takeaway with this detergent is if you’ve been using liquid detergents or are there more commercially available detergents and finding that it irritates your skin, especially in these times where you’re wearing a mask, it may be time to try a laundry soda and see if you have better results. Switching to this can help the respiratory, reduce skin irritation and brighten your clothes all at once. Really whatever else could you want in a natural product?
