Washing-up Liquid

For most of us, the words ‘washing-up liquid’ bring to mind a small plastic bottle filled with green liquid. This way of buying washing-up liquid generates mountains of plastic waste that has polluted the environment for decades; there have been several reports of 60-year-old washing-up liquid bottles washing up on British beaches.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. 

Most of the brands in this guide are doing things differently and providing bulk-buying options, refills, and concentrated products. And many take back their packaging for reuse or recycling. 

This guide to eco friendly washing-up detergent covers several high scoring brands, small independent companies, high street big names like Fairy and Persil, and other brands like Ecover and Method. 

We rate these brands on their packaging, climate action, policies on animal ingredients and animal testing, workers' rights, tax conduct and more. 

With nearly half the brands in the guide recommended as best buys, there's plenty of options to choose from to make washing the dishes more eco friendly and sustainable.

Eco friendly washing up liquid

One of the ways to make doing the dishes more eco friendly is by using refills to reduce the amount of plastic packaging used. 

Our high scoring brands are taking action on packaging, shifting to refills, bulk buying, concentrated liquids or alternative formats like a bar soap in a cardboard box.

Some brands in the guide, however, managed to score 0 points out of 100 for packaging, as we considered they were not taking action on addressing the problem of plastic packaging. 

The worst rated brands for packaging were: 

• Astonish
• INEOS
• McBride: Clean n Fresh, Surcare
• Procter & Gamble: Fairy 
• Unilever: Persil

Refills of washing up liquid

Using refill stations or buying refillable products significantly reduces the plastic impact of your washing-up purchases. Once a fringe ethical phenomenon, more and more shops and companies are now offering refills. Even Aldi has dry-goods refill stations in some of its shops, although it hasn’t extended to liquids yet. Sadly, other supermarkets seem to have ended their refill trials but there are still plenty of alternatives as the brands in this guide demonstrate.

Of our Best Buys, the following are available from refill stations: Bio-D, Ecoleaf, Faith in Nature, Fill Refill, Greenscents, Miniml, and SESI. All apart from Ecoleaf and Greenscents have maps on their websites showing their stockists. If you don’t have a stockist near you, all of the above apart from SESI sell directly to consumers too.

The following companies also sold refills through their websites: Kit & Kin, Homethings, Smol, and Splosh.

Bulk-buying washing up liquid

Buying in bulk isn’t zero waste but it can reduce the amount of plastic packaging you consume. All of the Best Buys offered bulk options (2 litres or more) apart from Smol. Buying in bulk is also cheaper. See our price comparison table further down for more information.

Concentrated washing up liquid and plastic free detergent options

Washing-up liquid is mainly water. Four brands have taken some or all of the water out of their washing-up products in order to reduce their packaging, the space needed and the weight of transporting their products and therefore their carbon impact. 

Homethings comes as a powder which you re-hydrate at home and Splosh is a concentrated liquid which needs to be diluted. 

Friendly Soap and Bio-D make solid dishwash bars which are also concentrated and come in cardboard packaging so are plastic free.

Can I return the packaging?

Some companies take their packaging back to use it again. Postage is free. 

These are: Faith in Nature, Fill Refill, Greenscents, Miniml, and SESI. 

Sonett says it takes bottles back for reuse but it’s a German company and we couldn’t find a way to do it from the UK. 

Kit & Kin, Smol, and Splosh say they will take packaging back to be recycled.

Eco labelling and eco claims

Eco labels, wording and certifications you can look out for on washing-up liquid include vegan, organic and cruelty free. There may also be eco claims such as 'free from ...', where the thing to be avoided may be palm oil, microplastics or toxic chemicals.

Given that washing-up liquid finds its way down into the drains and eventually into our waterways, you might think it self-evident that these products should not contain substances that could harm the environment. But most mainstream washing-up liquids contain petrochemical surfactants, whose biodegradability is questionable, and synthetic fragrances.

We've looked at some of the common but potentially harmful ingredients you may find in washing-up liquid, and highlight which brands do or don't use them. 

We rated companies more highly if they explicitly excluded certain ingredients that are harmful to human health and the environment. These toxic ingredients are triclosan, phthalates, parabens, and formaldehyde. There are other potentially harmful ingredients, but we think that if a company has excluded these four, it’s a good indication that they’re likely to prohibit all of the most toxic ingredients. 

Surfactants and biodegradability

‘Surface-active agents’ (surfactants) are the main active ingredient in detergents. They work by keeping dirt suspended in the water.

Surfactants can be made from plant oils such as palm or coconut oil, or can be synthesised from waste materials from the petroleum industry.

EU law requires that surfactants used in domestic detergents must be aerobically biodegradable (it will biodegrade if oxygen is present) and break down by 60% within 28 days. Petroleum-based surfactants can pass this test.

Companies such as Bio-D, Greenscents and Sodasan use only plant-based surfactants which are readily biodegradable meaning that they break down completely within a short period. As plant-based surfactants may be derived from palm oil, it’s important to check how companies are sourcing this. 

PVA and microplastics in detergents

The harmful ingredients category gave points to companies for excluding microplastics. Microplastics can be harmful to human and animal health. They can be both solid and not biodegrade, or liquid and biodegrade poorly, and we looked for companies to exclude both.

There is some disagreement over whether polyvinyl alcohol (also known as PVA and PVOH) is really biodegradable and the extent to which it is harmful. But the Beat the Microbead campaign includes PVA in its red list of ingredients found to contain synthetic polymers which are commonly considered to be microplastic ingredients.

The NGO Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS) is campaigning against the use of biodegradable plastics, stating that they

“can present similar hazards in the natural environment to plastics, and the testing methods for biodegradable plastics do not yet reflect realistic use or existing environmental conditions.”

Ruta Almedom, Head of Science at CodeCheck, told us: “PVA can't be considered readily biodegradable. The method often used by companies to claim biodegradability only works under specific circumstances, which do not reflect environmental reality. The often-used Zahn-Wellens test (OECD 302) shows if a substance is ‘inherently biodegradable’ – meaning it is not persistent. However, this does not prove that this substance is also readily biodegradable in the aquatic environment.”

We therefore deducted points from companies that were using PVA. Brands affected were: Astonish, Bio-D, Homethings, Smol, and Suma. Others, Attitude, Kit & Kin and Splosh also lost marks as they sold dishwasher tablets in "water-soluble" wrappers and we assumed that these were made from PVA.

Homethings had a page on its website discussing the PVA debate, though did advertise its products as “plastic free”.

Other companies found to be using liquid polymers on the Beat the Microbead red list were Ecozone, INEOS, and SC Johnson (owner of Ecover and Method). 

Fairy (Procter & Gamble) also scored 0 points in the harmful ingredients category, with Unilever (Persil), and Splosh also receiving low scores.

Palm oil in washing-up liquid

Palm oil is a controversial ingredient used in many products, with links to environmental destruction and workers' rights abuses. 

Some people seek to avoid any products with palm oil, and some people look for 'sustainable' palm.

Since 2021, when we made our palm oil rating stricter, no large companies using this versatile ingredient have been able to score well in this category. Even those that have all palm ingredients certified and are publicly tracking grievances raised in their supply chain, as well as disclosing which producers they source from, still fall short. We have yet to find a producer list that doesn’t include producers known to have ineffective NDPE measures, which stands for ‘No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation.’

This was the case for two of the biggest companies in these guides, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever, which were also found to have serious third-party criticisms related to their palm oil supply chains and lost points for this. 

How do brands rate for palm oil?

Greenscents was the only company which was completely palm free.

Most companies in our detergent guides did have all their palm ingredients certified, including all or most of the derivatives. 

We applied the following rating for palm oil if fully certified:

• brands with a turnover over £100m a year scored 40 (out of 100)
• between £10m-£100m scored 60, and under £10m scored 80.

Companies which did not meet our usual criteria but had taken some action on palm ingredients scored 20. This included: Astonish, Kit & Kin, and McBride (Clean n Fresh, Surcare).

Companies which lacked information on palm oil

A number of companies had a lack of information on palm but were using ingredients which could be derived from palm, and thus scored 0 (out of 100) for this category. This included new brand to this guide Homethings.

Attitude had no information on palm oil on its website. Ecozone had a palm oil free icon, but this was not on all products. Ineos’s latest report to the RSPO was incomplete, with no figures for palm usage. Its previous report showed only 16% as certified. Fairy's owner Procter & Gamble also scored zero points for this category.

For more information on palm oil and what ingredients to look out for see our separate palm oil page.

Organic washing-up liquid

There is only one fully certified organic washing up liquid in our guide: Greenscents. 

Sonett and Sodasan also used some certified organic ingredients in their washing-up liquids.

Vegan washing-up liquids

Almost all of the washing-up liquids in this guide are certified or marketed as vegan. 

The following companies are fully vegan:

• Astonish
• ATTITUDE
• Bio-D
• Faith in Nature
• Fill Refill
• Friendly Soap
• Greenscents 
• Homethings
• Kit & Kin
• Miniml 
• Smol
• Splosh

All of SESI’s own products are vegan but it told us that it was a wholesaler of milk chocolate buttons that contained organic milk powder.

Ecoleaf is a vegan brand, but its parent Suma isn’t, although 90% of Suma's products are vegan. 

The Ecozone brand is vegan, but we could find no information about its parent company COBEPA.

Non-vegetarian owners of vegan brands

The Ecover and Method brands are vegan, but they are owned by SC Johnson which is not. SC Johnson tests on animals.

Vegan washing-up liquids but brand's other products not vegan

The following washing-up liquids are vegan, but the brands have other products in their ranges which are not, and so lost out on 40 points in the animals column: Ineos, Sodasan, Sonett, and Surcare.

No information 

Clean n Fresh and Fairy did not state that they were vegan. Given that most washing-up liquids are vegan, it’s likely that they are. But they don’t publish their full list of ingredients so there’s no way of knowing for sure.

Cruelty free washing-up liquids

We looked at whether companies prohibit animal testing or not, and whether they use any animal ingredients or not.

The following companies were certified cruelty free for all their products:

• Astonish
• Bio-D
• Faith in Nature
• Fill Refill
• Friendly Soap
• Greenscents 
• Homethings
• Smol
• Splosh

The Ecoleaf brand was also certified and its wholesaler owner Suma required all the other brands it sold to be certified. SESI was not certified but got top marks for its animal testing policies.

The Ecover and Method brands were also certified cruelty-free, but their owner SC Johnson had no policy on animal testing. The same was true of Ecozone.

How do high scoring washing-up detergent brands compare on price? 

Below we list the price for a litre of our Best Buys, ranked by ascending price. If the company sold the product in bulk, we used the price of 5 litres to work out the price per litre. Smaller sizes were usually more expensive. Some people may not be able to buy in bulk, but we thought it was fair to do it this way as these companies are trying to encourage bulk buying for environmental reasons. 

For reference, the exceptionally low scoring Fairy, which has by far the biggest number of users in the UK, cost £3.06 a litre at Tesco. It has been included in the table for comparison.

Some companies offer a starter bundle which includes a plastic bottle. These are more expensive than the refills alone and we didn’t include them in the price calculation. Prices were checked on 1st May 2024. 

*We don’t actually know how this compares to a litre of liquid. The company says it lasts longer than liquid soap because it’s concentrated.

Are dishwashers better than washing up by hand? 

Dishwashers use less energy and far less water than the average handwashing methods. Even including manufacture, dishwashers have a lower carbon footprint overall, in a lifetime of 10-13 years, and could last much longer.

A dishwasher manages to wash up more items with less water because it filters and reuses the water. After a first wash with a few litres to remove loose soiling, a fresh few litres will be used with the detergent, and resprayed around 10 times a minute, finally followed by a fresh rinse. An eco-setting can use even less, taking longer to spray the water many more times, so it can use lower-temperature water and rely instead on the enzymes in the detergent to gradually remove particles from the dishes.

To use a dishwasher most efficiently, definitely don’t pre-rinse by hand, and do wait until the dishwasher is full. For more detail see our dishwasher guide or listen to Radio 4’s Sliced Bread programme (broadcast on21 March 2024).

Of our Best Buys, Bio-D, Ecoleaf, Fill Refill, Greenscents, Miniml, SESI, Smol, and Sonett sell dishwasher detergent too.

 See our online guide to dishwasher detergents for more information.

Workers' rights and washing-up liquid

How do washing-up detergent brands rate for workers' rights?

Only Fill Refill, Greenscents, and Miniml scored 100 (top marks) in the workers category. They make their products in-house and have direct oversight of, and responsibility for, the conditions of the workers making their products. 

Astonish and Faith in Nature also make all their products in-house in the UK but didn't quite get top marks (we look at a number of things in our workers category.) Bio-D, SESI, and Splosh make some of their products in-house.

The worst brands for worker's rights scoring 0/100 were:

• Attitude
• Homethings
• McBride (Clean n Fresh, Surcare)
• Ecozone (Compagnie Benelux Participantions)
• Procter & Gamble: Fairy 

How do washing-up liquid brands rate for climate action?

Four companies got top marks in this category, which included credible discussion of emissions cuts past and future. These were Faith in Nature, Fill Refill, SESI, and Smol.

Small companies don’t often have complete information on all their carbon impacts, but Faith in Nature reported its scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and SESI was in the process of calculating its full carbon emissions to set a baseline for its reduction targets. Fill Refill and Smol discussed product use and how their products could be used efficiently, for example they made laundry products that can be used at lower temperatures.

Where small companies had a lower carbon product, we gave them points for past and future emissions reductions as the product would continue to create carbon savings into the future. This was the case with brands offering refills and concentrated products such as Miniml and Splosh.

Ineos was the only company to score 0 for climate as it was involved in new development of fossil fuels.

How do the companies rate for tax?

For tax conduct, all companies either scored full marks or no marks, except McBride which had a couple of low risk subsidiaries in tax havens. 

Worst brands for tax conduct, scoring 0/100 were: 

• Ecozone (Compagnie Benelux Participantions)
• INEOS
• Procter & Gamble: Fairy 
• SC Johnson: Ecover, Method
• Unilever: Persil