I kind of looked into soap nuts, but the downside (in my mind, maby not in other peoples mind) is #1 they could be hard to collect, and I am not certain how long it would take the tree to start producing and that is a problem when someone wants to adopt a 'localvore type' mentality (I know soapnuts are not food) And I am not one of thoes people that screams that the earth is getting a fever...its just that I have a reduced amount of faith in everything working correctly and I would like to try to have localy sourced items.