The Good: Lasts a long time, Comparatively inexpensive, Effectively cleans dishes, Good neutral scent.
The Bad: Does not work on cooked-on foods.
The Basics: Arguably the ultimate dish soap for washing dishes by hand, Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring lasts pretty much forever!
Looking over my body of reviews, something struck me the other day. For someone who has such a vast inventory of food reviews, I have remarkably few reviews of products concerning cleaning dishes. I swear, I am not a barbarian! I DO dishes quite a bit, even if I do not use the Action Pacs (reviewed here) anymore. So, today, to start rectifying the oversight, I thought I would write about the best dish soap I have found in recent years. It is Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring.
I suspect that the reason my wife and I found Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring on the clearance rack of our local grocery store was because the name “Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring” does not tell consumers what the product actually does. Pure and caring are hardly words that describe a dish soap to me, so I understand the initial apprehension one might have about picking up Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring. I suspect the other reason Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring was being clearanced locally was that it bore an initial price tag of $2.99. Yeah, I live in an area filled with cheapskates. In fact, I am one of them. But, in the “The Bad” section above, did you notice how price is not a factor in how highly I rate Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring? There is a reason for that!
Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is a very simple dish soap. It is a translucent fluid with a slight green tint to it. We found it locally exclusively in the 20 fl. oz. plastic bottle. In that form, it appears much like any other dish soap. It features a top that is opened by unscrewing 180 degrees, which is atypical, but when opened thus, the fluid is easily dispensed. One of the shocking aspects of Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is how liquid the soap is. I tend to expect Ultra products, those concentrated without much excess water, to be much more viscous, even gooey. Instead, Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is very fluid and that led me initially to reason that it was not going to be a great value, even at the $.75 we paid for it on clearance.
I was wrong.
Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring lives up to its “Ultra” name. I use a dime sized dollop of Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring when I do dishes. That little amount allows me to do a full (four people’s dishes, three meals a day) sink full of dishes. We have had this bottle of Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring for almost six months as a result. So, right off the bat, this is one of the best values in dishsoap because it stretches an exceptional amount.
When opened, Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring emits one of the most vague aromas I have ever smelled. There is a strange, almost earthy quality to the scent of Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring and the best I can identify it as is the scent of aloe. This is, by no means, a strong scent at all and when dishes are properly rinsed, the scent washes right off with the soap. Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is an excellent dishsoap for those who are not fond of strong scents.
Using Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is simple. All you need to do is open a bottle of Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring, squirt a dollop into a dirty bowl, cup or onto a plate and turn the water on. A dime-sized dollop is enough to clean an entire sink full of dishes. One of the superlative characteristics of Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is that it lathers up excellently, easily bubbling to fill a sink with cleaning bubbles. Even when the bubbles are not present – i.e. because dishes have been soaking – I know the Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring dishsoap has been working because of how effectively it cuts through grease and limited amounts of baked on food. This leaves dishes clean and even when all sorts of dishes have been soaking together, like greasy pans and drinking glasses, dishes that are washed and then rinsed with this dishsoap end up sparkling clean and streak free!
What Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is not ideal for are the real potstickers. If you cook rice to the bottom of a pot or burn a pasta meal to an old pan whose Teflon surface has worn out, the Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring dish soap will not do all that much for you. Objective testing in those circumstances illustrated that Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring did not enhance the cleaning experience for trying to get cooked-on goods off pots and pans. Soaking those dishes showed no real difference between with this dishsoap vs. just hot water. That makes some sense as Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring does not have any form of agitating beads in it. To me, this is not a dealbreaker, as I tend to rely upon the type of scrubbing instrument (like a steel wool pad) to do the work over the detergent.
Ultimately, Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is one of those great products that does what it promises. Working in the water with Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring, the dishsoap actually softened my hands. It is hypoallergenic, which is not really a concern for me, but seems to actually have those properties (my wife is allergic to many things and was not allergic in any fashion to Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring). And Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring cleans dishes leaving them grease and streak free.
Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring is a steal at $2.99 (or less). Actually, this is arguably the best dishsoap I have ever used and it is fitting that I recommend it so highly as my first dishsoap review; with Ultra Palmolive Pure + Caring dishsoap, you will not need to shop around. This is THE dishsoap to buy!
For other dish detergents and household cleansers, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Lemon Jet Dry
Lysol All Purpose Cleaner With Bleach
Renuzit Aroma Adjustables Apple & Cinnamon
10/10
For other home and garden product reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by clicking here!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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