Looks like that whole “you get what you pay for” thing doesn’t exactly apply to liquid dish soap. According to our siblings at Consumer Reports, there are plenty of dirt-cheap dish liquids that do the same job as the stuff with the fancy name and label.

In the May issue of Consumer Reports, the magazine put an array of 14 dish soaps to the test against a baked-on mixture of evaporated milk, flour, egg yolk and sugar. The magazine also tested the soaps’ grease-cutting ability by seeing how quickly the liquids removed lard from both glass plates and stainless steel surfaces.

The sorta-good news is that all the soaps tested did very well at removing both grease and baked-on food, so all are recommended based on those criteria. However, the disparity in price among the tested liquids varied wildly.

CR’s Best Buys from the tests were Ajax and Costco’s Kirkland Signature soaps, both of which cost just $.06/ounce. Some of the detergents tested, like The Laundress, goes for $.94/ounce.

“Our tests show you don’t have to pay a lot to get your dishes clean,” said Jim Nanni, Associate Technical Director for Consumer Reports. “All dish liquids contain surfactants, enzymes and other chemicals to aid in cleaning.”

Cheap dish detergents just as good as high-end brands [Consumer Reports]

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