The 4 Safest Dish Soaps You Can Buy

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You probably come into contact with some type of household cleaning product every day, but you may not spend too much time thinking about what’s in them. As long as they get the cleaning job done, they’re good, right?

Well, it turns out that all cleaning products are not created equal. Everything from laundry detergents to bottled waters has some brands that are far safer than others. Of course, you want every product you use to be as safe as possible, but dish soap in particular spends a lot of time on and near your hands. Unfortunately, many common brands of dish soap contain chemicals that can be rough on your skin. Make sure you know about the most toxic spring cleaning products (and what to buy instead).

“Dish soap is one of the worst [products] for skin irritation,” says Madeline Novak, a proprietor who specializes in natural skincare. “Not only does it have lots of harsh chemical preservatives and so-called ‘disinfectants,’ but it also carries a strong fragrance load, which is almost never naturally derived.”

Novak knows firsthand about the adverse effects that chemicals in cleaning products can have. She has a severe skin allergy that made it difficult for her to use many common brands of dish soap. Here are some rules everyone with sensitive skin should follow.

Nutritional chef Melissa Eboli also knows a thing or two about cleaning product safety. Seven years ago, she developed a severe case of multiple chemical sensitivity and had to get rid of many of the cleaning products in her house that were triggering her MCS. She has even been on ABC News to discuss her experiences. Eboli says that the safest dish soaps are the ones that aren’t synthetic. “The only products I use and recommend use real ingredients, with words that I can understand and pronounce,” she tells Reader’s Digest.

Here are the brands of dish soap that Novak, Eboli, and other experts recommend: