The Battle of the Baby Dish Soaps

If you read my Citrus Lane experience post then you'll know how excited I was to try out a new baby dish soap that came in Olive's box. Yes, this is what my life has come to. I get excited about new dish soaps.

Olive is breastfed but gets a bottle when I'm gone or when we're all out and away from home. I pump on the rare occasion that I have a chance, but she gets formula when she's away from me or when we're out in public, and I usually make her cereal with formula as well. So I find myself washing away both breastmilk and formula from Olive's bottles. I hand-wash her bottles, bowls, baby spoons and of course the breast pump parts separately from the rest of the dishes.

This Dapple Dish Liquid is "baby-safe" with "natural ingredients". You can read on the label that it is Dioxane-free, free of parabens, pthalates, SLES and dyes, biodegradable, rinses fast and is pediatrician recommended. That all sounds good to me, plus the scent is wonderful. I smell lots of sage and something else that I can't put my finger on, but it's a very herbal scent. Demitri and I love it. Demitri happens to love the smell of sage, it's funny. Every time we are at my mom and dad's he has to go to the herb garden and pick some to rub and smell. That kid. :)

This soap rinses well and leaves everything feeling clean. There is absolutely no scent left behind on the bottles/bowls/parts/etc. I'm so pleased with this sample! I've done about 10 loads of baby dishes with this 3 oz bottle, and it's still half full. It is by far my favorite baby bottle dish soap that I have ever tried. Want to hear about the others? Ok...

Palmolive Baby Bottle, Toy & Dish Wash

We always used this soap for our boys' bottles. I hate the strong scent and thought that it didn't make much sense for a soap claiming to have "no unnecessary ingredients" to have such a strong fragrance. The scent would stick to the bottles and you could smell it on them even after they were dry. I wasn't a big fan, but didn't realize that there were other baby dish soaps. This Palmolive baby dish wash is sold in the same isle as regular dish soap for under $3, and I never saw any others so I just went with it. It does get the job done, is inexpensive, and cleans well. I just can't stand the strong scent that it leaves behind.


Medela Quick Clean Breastmilk Removal Soap

When we had Olive we went back to the same old Palmolive baby dish wash, but I happened to see this Medela Quick Clean soap at Walmart while I was looking around one day when she was about two months old. I bought it even though I cringed at the price. This stuff will cost you at least $8 for a measly 6 ounces. I've seen it going for even more online and at Babies R Us. How ridiculous is that, for some soap?! Anyway, I gave it a try. The soap itself has a weird, almost chemical-y smell that is not pleasant, but the scent does not stay on the bottles or anything else I wash with it. It doesn't sud up, which isn't really a problem for me but might bother other people. It rinses well and leaves the bottles and parts feeling clean. However, it leaves a residue on nipples. No matter how hard I scrub and rinse, there is always a weird filmy residue left all over the bottle nipples. For what I paid, I didn't expect to have this problem. Since this was the second baby dish soap that I had tried and was unhappy with, I was glad to try out the Dapple dish liquid, and even more glad that I ended up loving it!

I'm trying to figure out where I can/should buy more Dapple dish liquid so that I don't run out. I'm almost positive that Walmart doesn't sell it because I think I would have noticed if they did. I'll check Target and Walgreens, but I know for sure that I can buy it at Amazon.com. While I was checking on prices, I noticed that Dapple also makes toy & surface wipes and laundry detergent! I'd definitely love to try more Dapple products since I have fallen in love with this one.