Grove Collaborative review: Its natural soaps work well & smell great

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• I never thought that I’d be excited by everyday household supplies like dish soap and hand soap, but the soaps from online natural home brand Grove Collaborative changed that for me. 
• Its soaps are made with safe, plant-based ingredients and come in refill packs, to be used with sleek and sturdy glass dispensers. The ones I tried from the Autumn Fig Collection ($37.95, currently unavailable) also smell amazing. 
• If a company can make me look forward to washing my dishes and hands, then I’m very interested in seeing what else it can do to improve the little tasks in my life. 
• See more: The best hand soap

When I’m in the kitchen, things like an efficient, versatile pan and elegant, simple dinnerware excite me. So does a nice bottle of olive oil and protein-packed grains.

I could spend hours considering the features of cookware and food products, but I’ve probably only spent about 1/100th of the same time thinking about and picking out the soap in my kitchen. 

That attitude is changing, though. The growing popularity of natural beauty products has me looking more closely at the ingredients in all the other products I use in my daily life. There are few products I use more every day than soap. 

Grove Collaborative soap review

Grove Collaborative, an online marketplace for the best natural home and personal care products, sent me its Autumn Fig Collection ($37.95) last year, which includes gel dish soap and gel hand soap. 

I took to these simple and common household supplies with surprising gusto. The scent played a big role — the sweet and rich fig fragrance managed to be bright and clean rather than cloying, and it was a refreshing change from the generically “fresh” scents of most soaps. To top it off, this fragrance is all-natural, made with a blend of essential oils and other plant-based ingredients. 

These soaps cleaned as well as any other I’ve tried before, so it’s not really the effectiveness itself that impressed me. Instead, it was that they were made of safe, plant-based ingredients and promoted eco-friendly practices. The soaps come in refill packs rather than single-use plastic bottles and can be used with Grove Collaborative’s Glass Dish Soap Dispenser (16-ounce, $14.95, currently out of stock) and Glass Hand Soap Dispenser (13.5-ounce, $13.95). 

The dispensers are made from sturdy, partly recycled glass, so they’re reusable and refillable. Add a silicone sleeve and they won’t slip around on your sink top. Overall, they looked much sleeker than plastic bottles.

The Autumn Fig set also came with a natural soy candle, organic cotton tea towel, and European dish cloth, but it was the soaps that I loved the most because they elevated everyday cleaning rituals and made them safer for my body.

The bottom line

Overall, the gel dish soap and gel hand soap were a great introduction to Grove Collaborative’s standards of sustainability, quality ingredients, and beautiful products. I’ve since ordered again from the site for other home and personal care items like household cleaners and they were also top-quality. 

While the Autumn Fig Collection and scent are no longer being sold, there are many similar soaps and collections that also contain natural ingredients and fragrances. You can find all hand soaps here and all dish soaps here.