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Welcome to Clean Enough, a new kind of cleaning column for busy home cooks who have better things to do than scrub and sanitize around the clock. Every other week, neurodivergent writer and mom Emily Farris shares tips, tools, and products that can help you stay on top of the dirtiest spots in the kitchen while also dispelling a few cleaning myths and cutting down on clutter.
Sometimes when I get overly excited about decluttering, I’ll tuck the hand soap dispenser under the kitchen sink and tell my husband, “Just wash your hands with dish soap!”
Every time, he puts it right back where it was. “I like to use hand soap for my hands and dish soap for my dishes, Emily.”
For those who know us well, this tracks. He’s the type who actually uses products as directed. He sets a two-minute timer to brush his teeth and wouldn't dare take ibuprofen a month after its expiration date. I’m pretty much a one-woman off-label testing lab. I clean my kitchen sink with laundry detergent. I was drinking balsamic vinegar with club soda long before TikTok started calling it “healthy Coke” (it’s basically a shrub, people!). And when my babies were too young for sunscreen, I put diaper cream on their faces since zinc oxide is the active ingredient in both and if it’s good enough for their little butts, well…
Anyway, I’ve never seen the need for two soap dispensers on our already crowded kitchen counter—especially because I’m regularly exposing my hands to dish soap every time I forget to put on gloves to wash dishes, which is most times. Plus, baby ducks get bathed in Dawn, and for as long as I can remember, Palmolive’s tagline has been some variation on “Tough on grease. Gentle on hands.”
But as much as I fancy myself an amateur apothecary, my degree is in liberal arts. So to get a scientifically sound take, I turned to an actual scientist.
Javon Ford is a Los Angeles–based cosmetic chemist who often sets people like me straight on TikTok and Instagram. I’m happy (and honestly also kinda relieved) to report that he backed up my hypothesis with science.
“The short answer is yes, as long as you don’t have a skin condition like eczema, you can use dish soap as hand soap because the ingredients in dish soap are used in skin-safe concentrations,” Ford told me. “Safety-wise, it’s no worse than bar soap.”
The main difference between hand soap and dish soap, Ford explained, is that hand soap is formulated at the optimal pH for skin and often has added conditioning agents. So if soft skin is your goal, hand soap is better for prolonged use. On the other hand (yes, I see what I did there), those skin-softening additives can make soap less sudsy and, therefore, comparatively less effective because suds are what carry away grease, grime, and bacteria.
“Hand soap will still give you a clean feeling but it will take more effort to remove dirt and grime than dish soap,” Ford said. “The more sudsing and lather you can get from soap, the better for cleaning.”
That said, not all dish soaps are created equally and Ford cautioned against using anything on your body that has high concentrations of citrus oil because it can cause photosensitivity and lead to painful, dangerous sunburns. I was also a little sad to find out that Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds, a favorite all-purpose liquid soap of more than one Epi staffer, isn’t a great choice for hands since it’s scented with two kinds of pine oil, which can be a skin irritant.
Of the five dish soaps Ford vetted for me, I was thrilled to learn that the one I use at home—Mrs. Meyer’s Lavender Dish Soap—is the best option for hands because it contains glycerin, a humectant not usually found in dish soap. And as Ford said, “Dishes don’t need that!”
So go on, wash your hands with a gentle dish soap. It’s perfectly fine. And probably much healthier than writing articles for the sole purpose of settling an argument with your spouse.
Here are three more cosmetic chemist-approved dish soaps you can safely and effectively use to wash your hands at the kitchen sink.
