I have never tried soap nuts before and we are adults so our clothes seldom show dirt on them. To give teh soap nuts a test I used them on cotton floor carpets that we keep at our entrance doorways with visible dirt marks. Also on cotton towels that we put our shoes on with visible dirt. Much to my surprise they came out as clean or cleaner than they do with our normal detergent. I did a load of laundry with them and it was good also. Also tried the 18x and didn't notice a difference with my old detergent. I love the convience though vs guessing if the soap nuts are still good and grabbing them out at the end of a load and rerunning the rinse cycle.
The surprise stand out of the package was the laundry stain stick. I have some beautiful colored socks that were getting ground in dirt on the soles. Just for grins I rubbed the stain stick over the soles and threw them in the laundry basket. There is no odor to the stain stick so no problem with a stink of chemicals or perfumes sitt...