Dishwash Gel, Lime

Details

A concentrated gel built for Indian cooking, at 22 percent total actives measured by cation titration. Ghee, oil, haldi and baked-on masala come off a full karahi with about 5 ml on a wet scrub. There is no BIS product specification covering a household dishwashing liquid, which is a large part of why nobody prints an actives figure for one, so we test to the active matter methods in IS 6047 and IS 4955 and publish the number anyway. Two things in this formula deserve to be argued rather than glossed. The first is that it contains a sulphate and we are not going to hide it. Sodium laureth sulphate at 11 percent is here because on a plate what matters is not whether a surfactant is fashionable but whether it leaves, and SLES rinses off more completely and with less water than the glucoside-only systems sold as sulphate-free, which need more product and a longer rinse to clear. Sulphate-free is a marketing position, not a safety one, and the addendum to that position is that a free-from claim which quietly substitutes a harsher secondary surfactant is worse than the thing it replaced. The second is that the pH and the preservative are one decision. This gel is at a measured 5.8, and it is at 5.8 partly because sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate only work below about pH 6. A gel at pH 7 preserved with benzoate is carrying a preservative in name only.

• Full surfactant system named and it adds to 22 percent: sodium laureth sulphate 2 EO at 11 percent, cocamidopropyl betaine 5 percent, sodium C12-14 alkyl polyglucoside 4 percent, lauryl glucoside 2 percent
• Measured pH 5.8 at 27 C, which is close to the skin's own 4.7 to 5.8, so a full sink does not leave your fingertips raw
• Preservative sodium benzoate 0.5 percent and potassium sorbate 0.3 percent. No MIT, no CMIT, no BIT, no formaldehyde donor
• Fragrance is cold-pressed lime oil at 0.4 percent, and the allergens in it are declared, because a natural fragrance still contains declarable allergens and natural has never meant hypoallergenic: limonene 0.24 percent, citral 0.02 percent, linalool under 0.01 percent. Three of the EU list of 26, quantified
• It rinses clean, which is the real risk in a dishwash and the thing the category never mentions. A vessel washed and rinsed under 5 litres of running water carries under 0.1 mg of anionic surfactant, measured as methylene blue active substances to APHA 5540 C. Rinse under a running tap, not in a still bucket, because no dishwash product rinses clean in still water
• Moderate lather on purpose. High foam is a habit, not a measure of cleaning, and what it costs you is rinse water
• No chlorine bleach, no phosphate, no synthetic dye, no triclosan, no quats
• No germ-kill claim. Nothing here has been tested against a named organism for a stated contact time, so nothing here says it kills anything
• Safe on steel, glass, melamine, non-stick, seasoned cast iron and brass, and it rinses off a feeding bottle
• At 5 ml a sink it is Rs 1.49 a sink from the 500 ml, Rs 1.30 from the litre and Rs 1.07 from the 2 litre refill. The bar in this range is Rs 0.60 a sink. The bar is cheaper and the gel is for non-stick, glass and hands, and we would rather say which is which