Written by Maia, President
UPDATED: September 2016
As a family of four, we go through a lot of dish soap, and my kids love to “help” wash dishes.
As with many products, natural dish soap often is as effective as the ones that are a startling orange color and full of magical chemicals that make your dishes sparkle. The trouble with being tough on grease is that this usually also means tough on the health of whoever uses the stuff–and on the aquatic life of the rivers and streams where it ends up.
As you will see below under “The Sneaky Stuff,” the vast majority of “natural” dish soaps contain a ton of chemicals, just like their conventional counterparts. And while you do wash most of the product off of your dishes, some residue probably remains. And if your kids are using the soap, you’ll want to make sure it’s truly non-toxic before they get it all over their hands.
My Top Pick for Best Natural Dish SoapIf you want to avoid just smearing grease around pans, I suggest you try Better Life’s natural dish soap. I’ve found it to be the most effective of the natural bunch.
From: $9.29 / monthBuy Now
Common Dish Soap Ingredients
Here’s some of the Bad Stuff you’ll find in most dishwashing liquid:
Our old apartment didn’t have a dishwasher, so Felix and I washed by hand multiple times a day.
- Surfactants. Sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) and sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) are common foaming agents, usually derived from coconut. Both SLS and SLES produce bubbles in your dish soap, and are found in lots of “natural” brands. SLS is okay in my opinion (although not ideal), but SLES is not. (Here is where I explain the differences between sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate.). There are other newer coconut-derived surfactants, such as potassium cocoate, that have better safety profiles.
- Dyes. Food-grade coloring is implicated in behavioral issues in kids, so I’m okay with my dish soap being colorless.
- Fragrance. Anything scented probably contains hormone-disrupting phthalates, unless the manufacturers specify that they only use essential oils. Even phthalate-free synthetic fragrances usually are petroleum-derived and contain undisclosed chemicals.
- Antibacterial ingredients. You may see “triclosan” listed on the label, or it may just say “antibacterial agent” or something along those lines. This stuff is totally toxic (carcinogenic and hormone disrupting) and also contributes to the antibiotic-resistant “super bugs” that are becoming a real problem.
The good news is that if you want something that really does work (almost) as well as Dawn, there are several great brands now available. So without further ado…
The Good Stuff: Natural Dish Soap
Sonnet Dish Washing Up Liquid
This soap by the German company Sonett is my new favorite for hand dishwashing. It contains none of the usual toxic suspects found in conventional (and many natural) brands of dish soap, works well, and looks pretty on my sink. Done and done!
From: $14.99 / monthBuy Now
Tandi’s Naturals Solid Natural Dish Soap
Because this is a bar soap (no plastic!), I was reluctant to try it at first. But given the dearth of truly safe options, I eventually agreed to test it out, and I was pleasantly surprised when it worked as well as the other natural soaps. The trick is to rinse the sponge well and often and then reload with soap. The ingredients list is incredibly safe–it’s 100% natural with nothing questionable (see all ingredients here).
Tandi’s bar soap is also a great choice for those of you dealing with eczema who are looking to rid your homes of all detergents, because this is soap, rather than detergent. A 3.5-ounce bar costs $6.
From: $5.50 / monthBuy Now
Eco-Me Natural Dish Soap
I love Eco-Me dish soap–it actually works, doesn’t contain scary ingredients (although it’s not 100% natural), and smells good.
From: $6.99 / monthBuy Now
Better Life Natural Dish Soap
Better Life is one of the few larger natural brands to not contain any synthetic fragrance. It also skips the SLS, SLES, and controversial preservatives. This soap is most effective if you put a generous amount on the sponge.
We are now carrying Better Life Dish Soap in our online store, where you can grab a bottle for $7.99.
From: $9.29 / monthBuy Now
MADE OF Foaming Organic Baby Bottle & Dish Soap
Made Of’s Foaming Organic Baby Bottle & Dish Soap, like all All Made Of products, is tested for everything from heavy metals and 1,4-dioxane so you can have total peace of mind when washing your baby’s bottles and dishes.
Pure Baby Bottle Wash (Pure by She She)
A reader recently put this baby bottle wash on my radar, and I’m so glad she did. This simple ingredients list (just saponified organic coconut, olive, and jojoba oils, vegetable glycerin, organic aloe vera, and organic rosemary extract) is entirely clean. I don’t see why you couldn’t use this soap on all dishes, although I haven’t tried it so I cannot speak to how well it works. You can get a bottle on Amazon for $8.95.
Attitude Dishwashing Liquid
A lot of you have asked about this brand. All of Attitude’s ingredients rank low risk on EWG’s database, but there are many synthetics (such as coco glucoside). Overall, while this one isn’t my top choice, it’s a good option. You can get Attitude Dishwashing Liquid in a two-pack on Amazon for about $12.
I Am Goddess makes one of the safest natural dish soaps out there, and it includes a few interesting ingredients, like apple cider vinegar and aloe vera. I have never used this so can’t attest to how it performs…if you have, please comment below!
The Best of the Worst
Because there aren’t that many dish soaps that we can call confidently Good Stuff, here are some that are what I will call Okay Stuff. If you can’t get any of the Good Stuff options, these are the best of the not-so-great.
- Whole Foods dish soaps have some not totally great ingredients, like cocamidopropylamine oxide, coco-betaine (rated a C by EWG), and sodium lauryl sulfate. Still, on the whole (pun!), Whole Foods’ soaps are better than other options. Choose the unscented variety when possible.
- Babyganics has ditched the SLES in their dish/bottle soap, which is great, and continue to change their formula every time I check for updates (so make sure you verify the ingredients yourself, as they may have changed again!). Sodium lauroamphoacetate is the newest surfactant, which seems safe enough although more studies are needed. They’ve added methylisothiazolinone as a preservative, which is definitely Bad Stuff, but in a small enough quantity that it’s not the end of the world. EWG score: C, but irrelevant because the ingredient list is outdated.
- Ecover’s liquid dish soap used to be on my Sneaky Stuff list (see below), but they’ve changed their formula and it no longer contains SLES or many of the other concerning ingredients in the older version. This dish soap DOES still contain SLS, so I’m not going to call it Good Stuff, but I would consider Ecover dish liquid Okay Stuff. Note that EWG hasn’t updated the list of ingredients, so their scores are inaccurate.
- Puracy is a newish brand, and I really WANTED to find out it was Good Stuff since I’ve been fielding lots of questions about this dish liquid. Unfortunately, I have some concerns with some of the ingredients in this one, including benzisothiazolinone, tetrasodium glutamate diacetate, and sodium lauromphoacetate (all of these and other ingredients get C’s from EWG). Still, nothing is overly concerning, so Puracy dish liquid is Okay Stuff.
Smearing Grease Around a Pan: Which Natural Dish Soap I Use
When we first made the switch to natural dish soap, my husband complained that doing the dinner dishes just felt like “smearing grease around a pan.” (I went with Seventh Generation, before I knew it that I had to read labels of the natural stuff, too!). Right now, I’m alternating between Better Life natural dish soap, Sonett natural dish soap, and Eco-Me natural dish soap–and they all are great. While I love the idea of a plastic-container-free soaps, and the Tandi’s soap we sell in our store has some die-hard fans, the truth is I just really like liquid dish soap.
The Bad Stuff
No big surprises here. Dawn sucks, and while they don’t disclose all of their ingredients, you can find their MSDS on the P&G website. Depending on which formula you pick, you’ll find SLES, fragrance (probably with phthalates), artificial colorings, carcinogenic phenoxyethanol, and/or neurotoxic methylisothiazolinone. EWG score: C-F, depending on formula.
Most Palmolive formulas contains sodium laureth sulfate, and they all contain synthetic fragrance and dyes. Palmolive does score a point for not using triclosan for their antibacterial soap (instead they use lactic acid). Palmolive’s “Eco” formula, and also the one they call “Pure + Clear” are the very definition of Sneaky Stuff! The Palmolive dish soap MSDS is available on the Colgate-Palmolive website. EWG score: D-F, depending on formula.
I could go on, but you get the point: stay away from Ajax, Ivory, Joy, and probably anything else that leaves your glasses suspiciously sparkly.
The Sneaky Stuff
Wow. When it comes to dish soaps, almost everything is Sneaky Stuff, even the stuff I used to think was Good Stuff. The 10 sneakiest dish soaps are as follows (in no particular order).
- Common Good dish soap–despite the amazing glass bottles–contains a bunch of bad ingredients, including sodium hydroxide, tetrasodium glutamate diectate, and sodium citrate.
- Dapple dish soap uses alkyl polyglucoside as a surfactant, which is safe, but it also contains tetrasodium iminodisuccinate (a C on EWG), synthetic fragrance (although they specify that it’s “made from ingredients consistent with the guidelines of the Natural Products Association”), and benzisothiazolinone (definitely Bad Stuff). When we tried to get more info from Dapple on their fragrance, we got no response (via phone or email). NOTE: Dapple sent me some free dish soap and other products to try. Obviously, this didn’t affect my review.
Ecover is a big, fat fraud! No wonder their dish soap works better than all the other natural ones. Here is some of the gross stuff it contains: SLES, limonene, citral, and something called 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol, which is an immunotoxin rated by 8-10 on Skin Deep. By the way, you won’t see these ingredients listed on the label. Ecover uses clever euphemisms for all of them; SLES hides in the “anionic and nonanionic surfactants,” for instance. What’s really upsetting is how many health blogs and websites recommend Ecover products. Tree Hugger, however, did call them out on the 1,4-dioxane in their dish soap, and if you’re interested in reading Ecover’s response, here you go. Oh, and you are correct if you recall my former endorsement of Ecover laundry detergent. I’ve since updated that section of this site, feeling foolish that I accepted their dodgy response about SLES: “Not at concentration levels in our products. SLS and SLES can cause skin irritation just as any other plant based surfactant; even soap can do that. All depends on the concentration of the solution, the synergy with other ingredients in the formula, the temperature of the solution and the exposure time, to name just the most important factors…There is no specific negative effect linked to the use of SLS and SLES, which are both based on coconut oil.” Note: Ecover sent me laundry detergent to review. EWG score: C.Check above under Good Stuff: “Best of the Worst” for my new assessment of Ecover.- Earth Friendly Products used to list the ingredients in their Dishmate soap as just “water, salt, organic grapefruit oil, and 100% natural anionic coconut kernel oil-based surfactant.” They have recently started disclosing all of their ingredients, which include cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium coco-sulfate, cocamidopropylamine oxide, phenoxyethanol, and methylisothiazolinone. Super sneaky! EWG score: D.
- GrabGreen changed their formula, and their dish liquid now contains sodium laureth sulfate and cocamidopropyl betaine.
- Mrs. Meyers Clean Day’s PR company sent me bottles of all of their dishwashing liquids, hoping to have it reviewed on this site. While I did in fact use all four of delicious-smelling and totally effective dish soaps, I won’t buy or recommend Mrs. Meyers. They are indeed scented with essential oils, as the label claims, but they also contain synthetic fragrances (although a Mrs. Meyers rep assured me they are free of phthalates). While Mrs. Meyers does not contain SLS or SLES, it does have cocamidopropyl betaine, methylisothiazolinone, and benzisothiazolinone. EWG Score: C to D, depending on scent.
- The Sierra Club endorses Clorox Green Works dish soap, but we can’t do the same, thanks to synthetic fragrance (I’ve been unable to get an answer on whether or not this means it has phthalates) and artificial color. Green Works uses lauramine-oxide as a surfactant, which is rated a C by EWG. There are also a lot of other undisclosed ingredients, and for this EWG grades them an F.
- Method dish soap uses synthetic fragrance and color (this one is free of phthalates), and also contains synthetic preservatives, SLS, and ethanol. Still, I admit to using some of Method’s other cleaning products—I love how their bathroom cleaner smells and can’t break the addiction. EWG score: D-F, depending on formula.
- Caldrea dish soaps contain methylisothiazolinone, benzisothiazolinone, sodium coco-sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, and undisclosed fragrance. EWG score: C-D, depending on formula.
- Trader Joe’s doesn’t disclose any specifics about their dish soap, but we know it has artificial colors. EWG score: F.
- When I wrote the first version of the dish soap safety review (back in 2009), Biokleen was tight-lipped about the specific ingredients they use (“Unfortunately, our surfactants are a proprietary blend and therefore we do not disclose that information to the public.”) Biokleen did assure me, however, that their detergent is free of both SLS and SLES and that they don’t use synthetic fragrances or dyes. They sent me their material safety data sheet (MSDS) and their surfactant blend is not considered hazardous or possibly carcinogenic. Given all of this information, I felt that Biokleen should be considered Good Stuff. Unfortunately, Biokleen recently changed their formula and, to their credit, chose to disclose all ingredients. These include cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium lauryl sulfate (I’m actually okay with this ingredient, but I know some of you may not be), lauramine oxide, and something called C10-16 alkyl glucoside, about which I can’t find any information. NOTE: Biokleen sent me some free dish soap to review.
- Honest Company’s Honest Dish Soap has changed their ingredients for the better since the original version of this guide. But it still contains sodium benzoate, cocomidopropylamine oxide, phenoxyethanol, sodium coco-sulfate, and cocamidopropyl betaine. EWG score: A (Obviously, I disagree with this rating.)
- Sapadilla Lovely Liquid Dish Soap contains cocamidopropyl betaine.
- Seventh Generation is totally transparent about their ingredients, so they get points for that. Another plus is that they test the SLS in their dish soap to ensure that it does not contain detectable levels of 1,4-dioxane. Unfortunately, there dish soap also contains methylisothiazonlinone and d-limonene (which gets a D from EWG). EWG Score: C to D, depending on the formula.
- Shaklee is a brand that we are asked about often. Unfortunately, their dishwashing liquid contains Poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl), .alpha.-sulfo-.omega.-hydroxy-, C10-16-alkyl ethers (yes, that’s one ingredient!), which may be contaminated with carcinogenic 1,4-dioxane. It also contains tetrasodium EDTA and C10-16-alkyl glycosides, both of which EWG rate a C.
- Sun & Earth dishwashing liquid contains sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, and phenoxyethanol. All of this is Bad Stuff! EWG Score: A (I cannot figure out why!)
What About Dishwasher Detergent?
We are working on a Safe Dishwasher Soap Guide, but for now, here’s what we’ve identified as the Good Stuff:
- Better Life Dishwasher Gel
- Eco-Me Fragrance Free Auto Dish Soap
- MamaSuds Auto Dishwashing Powder (Note: Because this is a soap rather than a detergent, it’s a great option for those struggling with eczema.)
How to Make a Natural Dish Soap
As usual, my fabulous readers are often greener and cleaner than I am, and many of them use homemade dishwashing liquid. Here is one insanely easy homemade dish soap recipe that a one reader swears by: Combine 2 parts castile soap (Dr. Bronner’s is a good option) with 1 part warm water, plus a few drops of lemon oil. Shake before using.
Ash says
What is your opinion/ knowledge on Puracy brand?
Obi says
Hi,
This is a great collection of information. What is your opinion about aloe extract in some of these dishwashing liquids such as Betterlife. Some links aloe extract to cancer (Ex: Prop 65).
Thanks
Obi
Katelyn says
What about “if you care” dishwasher pods?
Kathy says
Hi Maia
Is there a dish soap that can double as a hand soap?
susan gilligan says
Do you have any knowledge on J.R. Watkins dish soap?
susan gilligan says
What about J.R. Watkins dish soap?