7 Things You Shouldn’t Clean With Dish Soap

Even the sweatiest, oiliest skin doesn’t need the rigorous stripping you’ll find in standard dish soap. “Dish soap and skin cleansers are based on the same ingredients—surfactants—but dish soap is usually formulated to be more cleansing, which might end up stripping skin a bit more,” says Michelle Wong, PhD, a cosmetic chemist in Sydney, Australia. Although they’re formulated to be gentle on your hands, “there’s only so much a cleanser can mitigate against prolonged exposure, so wearing gloves while washing dishes is always a good idea. Body skin is usually more resilient than face skin, so dish soap might be better tolerated there, whereas it might be too harsh for people’s faces if used repeatedly.” That particularly applies to people with eczema, according to Jennifer Stein, MD, PhD, a dermatologist at NYU Langone, who advises using a gentle cleanser without alcohol and avoiding scrubbing. 

The same goes for your hair, according to Wong. “Modern shampoos usually contain conditioning ingredients that keep hair from tangling and snagging during washing, but these might not be present in dish soap, so you may end up damaging your hair,” she says.