So, we’re running out of dish soap- the 99-cent thing of palmolive I bought about 3 months ago. Okay, think I, I’ll put it on the grocery list and pick up another one soon. But my roommate has other ideas- when I get into the house yesterday, I notice that he’s replaced the near-empty thing of dish soap with a dial anti-bacterial hand soap. Hand soap??
(Of course, this may be a knee-jerk reaction to the time one of my broke-ass roommates, in an attempt NOT to buy dish soap, began to wash her dishes with a bar of soap from the bathroom. I remember exclaiming, horrified, “This household is not going to wash dishes with BAR SOAP!” and immediately eating the expense of more dish soap)
Bar soap is one thing, but what’s the real difference between liquid antibacterial dish soap and liquid antibacterial hand soap? Is this mainly a marketing distinction, or is there something about dish soap that makes it better for dishes than hand soap? Will hand soap effectively clean dishes?
Isn’t hand soap generally more expensive then dish soap? I have heard that you shouldn’t use dish soap on your hands (dries them out or irritates them) but I haven’t specifically heard anything about using hand soap on dishes. I am eagerly awaiting the answer.
Are you handwashing the dishes? It might work, although yes, it is almost certainly cheaper to use dish soap, on the order of a few magnitudes. They make “moisturizing” dish soap, but I don’t know how good that promise is.
If you have a dishwasher, hand soap has to be a dangerous idea. You may find suds covering your entire kitchen.
My optician said I should use dish soap to clean my eyeglasses, because hand soaps contain oil-based skin moisturizers that dish soaps don’t. Although, I suspect that some dish soaps that are advertised as being good for your hands probably do have skin moisturizers added.
I have used both kinds for my glasses with equal success. For what it’s worth I have a vague memory of having read or heard somewhere, sometime that dish soap and shampoo are essentially the same thing only differing in concentration.
Hang on for something crazy. I have always refrained from using hand soap on dishes because it leaves all kinds of residues. My solution? Use toothpaste to wash dishes when you don’t have soap dish. The logic? It is something that is meant to be put in your mouth.
I’ve been out of the business for a while now, but “back in the day” when they first came out, a hand soap would be much milder in terms of detergent component and also normally has more of a fragrance added. Dish soaps have stronger surfactants (detergents) and usually the formula is designed to remove oils. Oil on your skin, even your hands, is what keeps them soft and not dry. So if you don’t mind having dry, cracked skin on your hands, you can use dish soap for your hands. I personally wouldn’t use hand soap for my dishes as it might make them smell strongly of perfume (depending on the soap) which would make your food taste “off”, plus you might need a lot more to get your dishes clean.
I’d also suggest that the use of anti-bacterial anything at home is of debatable merit.
