Friday, January 18, 2008

review: dish soap

Recently, I was sent a bottle of Dawn Direct Foam dishwashing foam to try and review. Their marketing claims "you can do an entire sink full of dishes with just one pump of foam!" Seriously, I'm not really excited about hand-washing an entire sink full of dishes!  Let me try a day on the beach, or a pedicure, please - but hand-washing dishes?

I digress...

We have people over often, so getting pots & pans washed quickly (rather than wasting space in the dishwasher) is good. Plus, there are those parties, gatherings, etc. when I want to get things cleaned up as we go, rather than let a pile fill the sink.  So, I tried it.

I'm particular about soaps & cleaners in my house. I don't like running phosphates (this has none) and other chemicals into our local aquifers. I'm concerned about residues that can linger from soaps & affect our bodies. We try to conserve water, too, and our dishwasher is actually far more efficient than hand-washing dishes. Crazy? Maybe. Particular? Definitely.

Summary of the positive: I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this stuff. One squirt of foam on a damp sponge really did polish through an entire pile of wine glasses, serving ware, and pans.  I like how little water I used, yet it had good cleaning power & it's gentle on the hands. It cleaned dishes well, even greasy or baked-on gross ones. It made quick work of counter-top cleaning, too.

A few downsides: It is really foamy, so I had to make sure the dishes rinsed well. The foam also made it hard to see if you'd gotten everything off the corners. I'm not convinced the sponge isn't carrying germs from one dish to another. Of course, that's always a risk with hand-washing.

Finally - it works best with a sponge, not dishcloth. Trader Joes has little "pop up" sponges in 12-packs, which I recommend so you don't keep yucky sponges around the sink for long.  Go here for a coupon to try it yourself.  Also, Dawn has a "love it" policy & will give a full refund if you don't.

May you have more to your weekend than dishes,
MamaToo

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