A stand-up kraft paper pouch of Radico Organic Reetha Powder Hair Wash & Treatment, featuring a white, black, green, and orange label with certification logos.
A glass bowl filled with brown Sapindus mukorossi powder, shown with a small wooden spoon, loose powder, dark brown fruit pods, green leaves, and a label reading 'Sapindus mukorossi (Reetha Fruit)' on a light neutral background.
A stand-up pouch of Radico Organic Reetha Powder hair wash and treatment, displayed on a beige surface with a small wooden bowl of dried reetha pods, green leaves, and soft shadow lighting in the background.
A stand-up kraft paper pouch of Radico Organic Reetha Powder Hair Wash & Treatment, featuring a white, black, green, and orange label with certification logos.
A glass bowl filled with brown Sapindus mukorossi powder, shown with a small wooden spoon, loose powder, dark brown fruit pods, green leaves, and a label reading 'Sapindus mukorossi (Reetha Fruit)' on a light neutral background.
A stand-up pouch of Radico Organic Reetha Powder hair wash and treatment, displayed on a beige surface with a small wooden bowl of dried reetha pods, green leaves, and soft shadow lighting in the background.

Radico USA

Organic Reetha Fruit Powder For Hair

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Radico Organic Reetha Fruit Powder is milled Sapindus mukorossi fruit, grown on our own certified organic farms. One ingredient in the pouch and nothing else — no fillers, no synthetic preservatives, no fragrance, no PPD, no ammonia.

Net weight 100 g (3.5 oz). Roughly seven to ten washes at shoulder length. It carries no pigment, so it will not colour hair or shift a herbal colour you already have.

It cleans. It does not lather.

Reetha washes hair through saponins — compounds the plant makes that lower the surface tension of water. They lift oil the way any surfactant does, but they produce a thin, short-lived foam rather than the thick lather of a shampoo. If you are expecting suds, this will look like it is not working.

It is worth separating those two things, because they are not the same property. Lather is what happens when a surfactant traps air. Cleaning is what happens when it surrounds oil. A surfactant can do one well and the other barely at all — which is why industrial and dishwasher detergents are deliberately formulated to foam as little as possible. Foam gets in the way there, so it is engineered out, and the cleaning is unaffected.

Conventional shampoos foam heavily because people expect it. Reetha does not, and that is the whole of the difference.

A soapnut is not a nut, and not soap

Not a nut. Despite the common name, this is a fruit — a drupe in the Sapindaceae family, alongside lychee and longan. It is not botanically related to tree nuts.

Not soap either. True soap is made by treating fat with alkali, and what comes out is alkaline: a bar of soap typically sits around pH 9 or 10. That is why washing hair with soap leaves it rough — alkaline conditions lift the cuticle scales away from the shaft. Saponins are not made that way. They are glycosides the plant assembles itself, carrying no alkali at all.

We measured ours at pH 4.54, mixed at one part powder to three parts water by weight and read at 80°F. Hair’s own surface sits at roughly pH 4.5 to 5.5, so reetha lands inside that range with nothing added to adjust it.

To be fair about the comparison: most modern shampoos are also pH-adjusted to sit in that range, so this is not a point of difference against them. It is a point of difference against soap, which is where the name sends people. What separates reetha from a conventional shampoo is something else.

Not the same kind of surfactant

Surfactants are grouped by what happens at the water-loving end. It is a distinction that never appears on packaging, and it is the one that explains how hair feels afterwards.

  Reetha saponins SLS, SLES and similar
Water-loving end A chain of sugars A sulfate group
Electrical charge None — non-ionic Negative — anionic
How it lifts oil Surrounds it and carries it off The same, but more aggressively
Foam Thin, short-lived Thick and persistent

Hair carries a negative charge of its own at washing pH. An anionic surfactant brings a negative charge to a negatively charged surface, and the interaction is not neutral: sulfates are extremely efficient at stripping sebum, and that efficiency is part of why hair can come out of a wash feeling squeaky and rough rather than smooth.

Reetha’s saponins carry no charge at all. The sugar chain is water-loving without being ionic, so the surfactant does its work on the oil without that additional interaction with the hair’s own surface.

What we notice. Hair washed with reetha runs through the fingers more easily than we expect it to, and often without needing a conditioner. We are reporting that as an observation rather than a measurement — we have not run a controlled comparison, and combing force is something that can be measured properly. What we can say is that the chemistry gives a reason to expect it.

What is actually in it

Two saponins account for most of what it does.

Compound Identifiers
Sapindoside A C41H66O12 · 751.0 g/mol · PubChem CID 6708710
Sapindoside B C46H74O16 · 883.1 g/mol · CAS 30994-75-3 · CID 161686

They are the same molecule, one sugar apart. C46H74O16 minus C41H66O12 is C5H8O4 — one five-carbon sugar, attached to the chain, which is why the mass goes up by 132 rather than by the 150 a free sugar would weigh. The fruit makes both, and that is what the pouch contains.

How to use it

Reetha is used differently from the rest of the range. The other herbs are pastes you leave on for half an hour. This one you wash with and rinse out.

 

1. Mix one part powder to three parts water

By weight. Stir into warm water and let it stand 5 minutes — the saponins need a moment to come out of the fruit, and the liquid thickens slightly as they do.

Hair length Powder Warm water
Short to chin 8–10 g (¼–⅓ oz) 25–30 ml (1 fl oz)
Shoulder length 10–15 g (⅓–½ oz) 30–45 ml (1–1½ fl oz)
Long or very thick 20–25 g (¾ oz) 60–75 ml (2–2½ fl oz)

At 1:3 this is a liquid, not a paste. That is worth saying, because the same ratio makes every other powder in our range hold its shape. Reetha stays thin enough to pour — which is exactly what you want for something you are going to wash with. A paste would sit on the hair; a liquid runs through it and reaches the scalp.

2. Wet your hair first

Reetha works on wet hair, the same as any wash.

3. Pour it onto the scalp in sections

Not all in one place. It is thin, so it will run — work in parts and tilt your head to control where it goes.

4. Massage for two or three minutes

With your fingertips, at the scalp. This is where the cleaning happens. Expect very little foam; that is normal and is not a sign it is not working.

5. Rinse thoroughly, head tilted back

Rinse for longer than you think you need to. This is milled fruit, and fine particles settle at the nape and behind the ears.

Keep it out of your eyes

This is the one place reetha is harsher than soap, and we would rather tell you plainly. Saponins sting, and in our experience reetha stings noticeably more than ordinary soap does. Being a plant does not make a molecule gentle on the cornea.

There is a second problem a liquid detergent does not have. This is milled fruit, so the wash carries fine particles that never dissolve, and those can lodge in the eye and keep stinging after the water is gone.

Tilt your head back throughout and keep your eyes closed while the wash is on. If any gets in, flush with plenty of cool running water — well past the point it stops hurting, because the aim is to carry the particles out rather than dilute the liquid. Do not rub; rubbing works a particle further in. If irritation persists after a thorough flush, see a doctor.

This is not a reason to avoid reetha. It is a reason to be deliberate about how you rinse, and to keep it away from children who will not be.

How often: two to three times a week suits most people. Reetha removes oil without stripping, so it does not need the daily frequency a strong detergent shampoo trains hair into.

If you are coming from a sulfate shampoo, expect a few weeks of adjustment. Scalps that have been washed daily with a strong detergent tend to produce oil at the rate that washing demands, and that rate takes time to settle.

Reetha and colour

Reetha is in 1 of Radico’s 24 shades — Sun Blonde alone. That is the fewest of any of our eight single herbs, and it makes sense: this is a cleanser rather than a colour or conditioning herb. It carries no pigment, so washing with it will not shift a herbal colour you already have.

One thing worth timing. Do not wash with reetha immediately after a plant colour. Henna and indigo both keep developing for up to 72 hours after application, and a surfactant wash in that window will take some of the result with it. Give it two to three days.

Which Radico herb should you choose?

If your concern is Choose
A wash with nothing added Reetha (Sapindus mukorossi)
Washing and softening in one step Shikakai (Acacia concinna)
A flaking or tight-feeling scalp Neem (Azadirachta indica)
Thinning, weak or tired-feeling hair Bhringraj (Eclipta alba)
Dry or brittle strands Methi (Trigonella foenum-graecum)

What we will and will not claim

That saponins are non-ionic surfactants is physical chemistry rather than a health claim. The structures are the reason reetha lifts oil off hair at all, and the absence of a charged group is the reason it interacts with the hair surface differently from a sulfate.

What we have not done is measure any of the outcomes. We have not compared cleaning efficiency against a conventional shampoo, and we have not measured combing force. We are not claiming superiority on either count — we would need controlled comparisons to say that honestly.

Published work on Sapindus mukorossi covers a range of biological activity, most of it concerning isolated compounds in laboratory conditions rather than milled fruit on a human scalp. We are not claiming this powder treats any scalp condition, and in the United States a cosmetic may not make that claim.

Before you use it

Sapindus mukorossi belongs to the Sapindaceae family. Despite the common name soapnut, the fruit is not a tree nut and is not botanically related to one — but as with any plant material, patch test on the inner forearm 48 hours before a full application, and stop use if irritation develops.

Radico Organic Reetha Fruit Powder is a cosmetic product for external use on hair and scalp. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition.

All items on Radico USA website ship for a flat-rate to any address in the continental US for just $4.99.

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If you are unsatisfied with the result, please contact us for a free replacement of the color of your choice. Returns within 30 days receive a full refund.

Ingredients

This product contains 100% Organic Reetha Fruit Powder — nothing else. A single-ingredient wash, milled from organically certified Sapindus mukorossi fruit. No fillers, no synthetic preservatives, no fragrance, no PPD, no ammonia. It carries no pigment, so it does not colour hair.

100% organic, made in India. Net weight 100 g (3.5 oz). Keep out of the eyes — saponins sting, and because this is milled fruit, fine particles can lodge in the eye and continue to irritate. Patch test on the inner forearm 48 hours before a full application. Sapindus mukorossi belongs to the Sapindaceae family; despite the common name soapnut, the fruit is not a tree nut. This is a cosmetic product for external use on hair and scalp; it is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition.

FAQ

Because lather and cleaning are separate properties. Lather is what happens when a surfactant traps air; cleaning is what happens when it surrounds oil. A surfactant can do one well and the other barely at all, which is why industrial and dishwasher detergents are deliberately formulated to foam as little as possible — foam gets in the way there, so it is engineered out, and the cleaning is unaffected. Conventional shampoos foam heavily because people expect it. Reetha's saponins produce a thin, short-lived foam while still lifting oil.

Despite the common name, reetha is a fruit — a drupe in the Sapindaceae family, alongside lychee and longan — and it is not botanically related to tree nuts. That said, we cannot tell you whether any plant is safe for you. Patch test on the inner forearm 48 hours before a full application, and if you have a diagnosed allergy, speak to your doctor first.

Our own reading was pH 4.54, on a handheld meter, from a mix of one part powder to three parts water by weight, read at 80°F. Hair's own surface sits at roughly pH 4.5 to 5.5, so reetha lands inside that range with nothing added to adjust it. Water hardness and mixing ratio will move the figure a little. Note that most modern shampoos are also pH-adjusted to that range — the pH is a point of difference against true soap, which is alkaline at around pH 9 to 10, rather than against shampoo.

The charge on the surfactant. Reetha's saponins are non-ionic: the water-loving end is a chain of sugars with no electrical charge. SLS and similar detergents are anionic, with a negatively charged sulfate group. Hair carries a negative charge of its own at washing pH, so an anionic surfactant brings a negative charge to a negatively charged surface. Sulfates are extremely efficient at stripping sebum, and that efficiency is part of why hair can come out feeling squeaky and rough. We have not measured the outcomes and are not claiming superiority — what we can give you is the mechanism.

One part powder to three parts water by weight. For short to chin-length hair, 8 to 10 g of powder to 25 to 30 ml of water; for shoulder length, 10 to 15 g to 30 to 45 ml; for long or very thick hair, 20 to 25 g to 60 to 75 ml. A 100 g pouch gives roughly seven to ten washes at shoulder length. At this ratio reetha makes a pourable liquid rather than a paste.

Two to three times a week suits most people. Reetha removes oil without stripping, so it does not need the daily frequency a strong detergent shampoo trains hair into. If you are coming from a sulfate shampoo, expect a few weeks of adjustment — scalps washed daily with a strong detergent tend to produce oil at the rate that washing demands, and that rate takes time to settle.

Not immediately. Henna and indigo both keep developing for up to 72 hours after application, and a surfactant wash inside that window will take some of the result with it. Give it two to three days. After that, reetha carries no pigment and will not shift a herbal colour you already have.

Yes, and in our experience noticeably more than ordinary soap does. Saponins are surfactants, and surfactants sting — being a plant does not make a molecule gentle on the cornea. There is also a second problem a liquid detergent does not have: this is milled fruit, so the wash carries fine particles that never dissolve, and those can lodge in the eye and keep stinging after the water is gone. Tilt your head back throughout, keep your eyes closed while the wash is on, and if any gets in, flush with plenty of cool running water well past the point it stops hurting. Do not rub. If irritation persists after a thorough flush, see a doctor.

  • ・100% Pure Plants, No Synthetic Chemicals
  • ・Free from Additives, Artificial Fragrance & Harsh Preservatives
  • ・Crafted with Traditional Ayurvedic Herbs

We create products rooted in nature and tradition.
Made with certified organic plant ingredients and no synthetic chemicals, our formulas support naturally healthy hair and skin—without compromise.

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