Washing the dishes may be my most hated chore, but since using a dish soap bar, I don't have to worry about what concoction of chemicals I'm washing down the drain! These dish soap bars (or kitchen bars as our new supplier calls them) are easy to use, last for ages, and importantly, leave you with sparkling, fresh-smelling dishes. Cuts through grease and doesn't leave a soapy residue.
Solid dish soap bar 95g. Lemon and Lime scented.
All of the ingredients are natural, plant-based, biodegradable, plastic-free, palm-oil free, SLS-free, and don't contain any parabens or harsh chemicals.
If you want a soap dish for your dish soap to sit on, please check out our ceramic soap dishes!
Dish Soap
The good old bottle of washing-up liquid. Loyally, it has stood by your sink for many years, having been frequently replaced as it empties each time with a new plastic bottle of washing-up liquid, but now, its time has come. Washing-up liquid manufacturers have failed to package their product in anything other than plastic bottles, and even brands that don’t add a load of dubious ingredients to their mixture, and so may be seen as a bit more ‘eco’, have only upgraded as far as using recycled plastic for their packaging. It’s a step in the right direction, but that plastic is generally downcycled, such that the recycled material is of lower quality than the original, so it won’t be used to make another washing-up liquid bottle. This isn’t the solution we’ve been searching for. Washing-up liquid? We’ve grown past that, it’s time for us to move on to our solids. It’s all about blocks of dish soap now.
No plastic packaging! One less plastic bottle to worry about.
No weird, pointless/harmful ingredients down the drain!
It is a little more awkward to use than washing-up liquid, but these are the prices we pay for our commitment to the environment. Washing-up is personally my most despised chore, but I can feel better about what I am washing up with, at least if I use dish soap, even if it doesn’t reduce the tediousness of the job. It’s not going to be for everyone, but even if you buy a block of this dish soap and use it interchangeably/occasionally along with your normal washing-up liquid, you would still be reducing the plastic you use. Short of going the whole hog, small steps in this direction still make a difference and are better than the status quo.
These new dish soaps are almost half the price of our previous supplier! Now £3.50 rather than £6.
...Well, yes, they are smaller than the previous dish soap bar, which was 150g, as opposed to 95g, so, overall, they work out to be a similar price per weight. Can't say I'm not honest.
It is made in the same way as other cold-pressed soaps for your bathroom, just with slightly different ingredients. As a small handmade soap business, £3.50 per dish soap bar is good pricing. Of course, it is more expensive than washing-up liquid, which is generally quite cheap, so there is no way that the prices will ever compare at this scale.
How long does it last? It will last a long time because you can’t liberally sploosh more than you need onto your washing-up in the same way that you do with washing-up liquid. With your dish brush or scrubber (which naturally should be plastic-free as well, or so I imagine if you are here) you rub the brush/scrubber onto the block or rub the block directly onto the dishes, of which a small amount goes a long way, resulting in a more controlled amount of washing-upness action. Make sure to let it dry out between uses to get your money’s worth. Or you can shave some off and leave it to dissolve in a bit of water for a liquid version if that’s what you prefer.
What are they made from?
Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Castorate, Aqua, Sodium Citrate, Citrus Limon Peel Oil, Citrus Aurantifolia Peel Oil, Limonene (naturally present in citrus oils)
Anionic surfactants 60-70%
pH = 8-9
Where do they come from?
Handmade in the UK
Are they sustainable?
Anionic surfactants - An intense-sounding name, sure, but this is just the official way to label cleaning products or detergent ingredients; it is just the ingredients used to cut through grease. All of the ingredients are natural, plant-based, biodegradable, plastic-free, palm-oil free, SLS-free, and don't contain any parabens or harsh chemicals.
Coconut oil – Can be wet or dry processed. Dry processing gives a higher yield but results in a poorer quality product. Wet processing is more expensive and needs more equipment, methods include electrolysis and steam distillation. Roughly, 1000 coconuts = 70 litres of coconut oil. As with any oil, a lot of the original plant is needed to make a small amount of oil. Refined coconut oil creates a higher yield, and this is mostly what is used in cosmetic products such as this unless otherwise stated. Using coconut oil in soap is good for those in hard water areas, as coconut oil dissolves more easily in hard water than other oils, allowing the soap to lather up better.
Castor oil is used as a replacement for petroleum-based substances in many products. It is a much greener alternative as it is renewable, unlike oil.
Essential Oils - Essential oil production generally uses steam distillation, which has no environmental concerns, but it takes a lot of plants to make only a small amount of essential oil.
Lemon Oil. –Lemon trees come from Asia; North East India is the top spot for this tree. The main lemon exporters are: in South America, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil; in Asia, India and China, and in Europe, Turkey. These countries provide around two-thirds of all lemons grown. Lemon essential oil is extracted using the peel by cold-pressing. This method doesn’t use excess heat or chemicals to extract the oil, so it is relatively environmentally friendly compared to other methods of extraction. Yield-wise, a bottle of 15ml lemon essential oil = around 50 lemons. The chemical Limonene is what makes lemons smell lemony, and is what lemon oil is mostly made of. Lemon oil is used in both cleaning and cosmetic products because of its ability to brighten and its antiseptic cleaning power.
Lime Oil -. Limes and Lemons appear to be somewhat interchangeable or considered as the same in reports on how they are farmed/produced.
Citrus plantations tend to be managed nowadays as an intensive monoculture (although a lot of crops are farmed this way now, bring back crop rotation!), which causes soil erosion. This type of farming, whilst effective for crop growing, has caused problems with the land and has even led to over-production (wasted food).
Packaged in recycled cardboard.
How about ethical?
Made in the UK by a small handmade soap business, so ethically we are all good here.
Extra good stuff:
Friendly Soap are a vegan brand, accredited by Cruelty-Free International and The Vegan Society. They also signed up to the Fair Tax Mark, and are a living wage employer.
Conclusion –
Before we are all washed up by environmental catastrophe, let’s leave the place clean and wash the dishes with a plastic-free bar of solid dish soap.
