Blueland Foaming Hand Soap Review 2020 | Eco-Friendly, Zero Waste, Tablet Based Foaming Hand Soap
The Top Line:
While we believe that the overall Blueland Essentials set is a BUY, we would NOT buy the foaming hand soap on its own. We preferred the bottle designs from other brands, and at a cost per oz, Blueland’s foaming hand soap is also one of the more expensive options. The biggest reason to buy Blueland is for its tablet-based formulation, which means drastic plastic reduction.
We break it down for you:
Cost: $16 for the Foaming Hand Soap Start Set, $2 per tablet refill (goes down to as low as $1.56 per refill if you buy in bulk).
Products Included: 1 “forever” hand soap bottle (9oz) with 3 refill tablets.
Coupons: Purchasing a larger kit saves you 20%, and shipping is free over $35. We didn’t find any other promo codes available for new customers at this time.
How ‘Clean’ Is This? Blueland products are non-toxic, kid-safe, pet-safe, cruelty-free, hypoallergenic, vegan, gluten-free, pH-balanced. Clear labeling of each product and breakdown of ingredients — all of which are naturally derived or a synthetic that is identical to naturally derived ingredients. Their reusable bottles are 100% BPA-free and non-leaching. They are certified by a number of environmental agencies.
Packaging: Everything was either 100% recyclable or compostable, including the wrappers for the refill tablets.
Purchasing & Shipping: Very easy purchasing experience. They text with shipping updates, which I personally prefer over getting more emails. Shipping is also free if you spend over $35.
Good to Know: Despite this product is all about the refills to save you money and make an impact for the environment, we LOVE that they do not lock you into auto refills.
What’s Your Impact? The biggest impact here is a major reduction in plastic. Blueland estimates that an average household will go through 30 single-use plastic bottles of cleaners a year — by using their refill tablets you’re able to cut plastic completely of your your everyday cleaning.
Blueland’s line of eco-friendly household cleaning essentials brings us one step closer to a zero waste home.
How Well
Did the Products Actually Work?
For context, I have been using predominantly Meyers or Seventh Generation products over the last 5 years. I was particularly interested in seeing how well the tablets dissolved, the scent, and how hard the cleaning solutions worked.
Blueland Foaming Hand Soap Review:
- The Bottle: We love that this is designed to be a foaming hand soap (a nice replacement for Method’s foaming hand soap!), but we prefer the design of the Cleancult or Grove Collaborative bottles — as the Blueland hand soap bottle has it’s branding is huge block letters, which might be a turnoff for some consumers (it was for us!).
- The Tablet: TThe tablet that did not dissolve entirely (even though I used hot water), I had to shake it for a couple of minutes to get it to completely dissolve. Note, the tablets for the rest of the Blueland cleaning sets worked perfectly fine. However, the tablet for hand soap is bigger than the other tablets, so might just be due to size — they could remedy this by either elongating the tablet or breaking it up into two smaller tablets. Overall, I was happy that it was tablet-based in the first place (from a shipping waste efficiency standpoint) compared to other refillable brands like Cleancult or Grove Collaborative.
- The Efficacy: Produces a thick foam (thicker than the Method Foaming hand wash when we compared the two) which gave it a very pleasant feel. Cleaned my hands well, with a light, clean scent.
1 Year Value
Comparison
Liquid Hand Soap Value Comparison:
We calculated based on Liquid Hand Soap assuming 10 bottles (16oz each or 160oz in total) for an average household’s use over the course of 1 year.
Cleancult Liquid Hand Soap: $0.46 per oz
Blueland Foaming Hand Soap: $0.28 per oz
Grove Collaborative Foaming Hand Soap: $0.23 per oz
Meyers Hand Soap: $0.31 per oz
Seventh Generation Hand Soap: $0.25 per oz
Softsoap Hand Soap: $0.13 per oz
What We Liked:
✔ Drastic reduction of plastic—while Cleancult and Grove Collaborative helps to achieve this in their offering as well, Blueland certainly takes the cake with their tiny refill tablets packed in compostable wrappers.
✔ We liked that bottles are clearly marked, and incredibly light-weight.
✔ You’re not locked into a auto-refill subscription.
✔ Most cost effective eco-friendly option out there given their $2 refill tablets.
✔ Packaging is all recyclable or compostable. We especially appreciate the design of the kit box, built to make it extremely easy to break down and recycle.
✔ Light, clean scents, with 3 options to choose from (Iris Agave, Perrine Lemon and Lavendar Eucalyptus).
✔ Non-toxic, kid-safe, pet-safe, cruelty-free, hypoallergenic, vegan, gluten-free, pH-balanced.
What We Didn’t Like:
✗ Hand soap tablet did not easily dissolve—despite using hot water (see photo above). Rest of tablets dissolved very well.
✗ While the bottles are very lightweight and clearly well-designed, we personally preferred the aesthetic design of the Cleancult and Grove Collaborative bottles more. We don’t like how heavy the glass options are though!
✗ Not Sulfate-free (contains Sodium Lauryl Sulfate). Worth noting that other eco-friendly brands like Meyers and Seventh Generation products also use SLS.
Our Recommendation:
While we believe that the overall Blueland set is a BUY (you can read our full Blueland review HERE), we would NOT buy the foaming hand soap on it’s own. We preferred the bottle designs from other brands, and at a cost per oz, Blueland’s foaming hand soap is also one of the more expensive options. The biggest reason to buy Blueland is for it’s tablet-based formulation, which means drastic plastic reduction.
We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!
