Dish soap that cuts grease

Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray has the best record for grease: 72 of 73 shoppers said it cut through grease and baked-on food. Dawn Ultra Original Dish Soap has the highest share at 35 of 35, from a smaller group. All four soaps do well, and even Palmolive Ultra Pure + Clear Dish Soap, with the weakest record here, gets 33 of 42.

  • 182 store reviews counted
  • Target shoppers
  • Mar 2014 to Sep 2026

Updated . How we count

Did it cut the grease? What shoppers said
  1. Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray 73 said either way
  2. Dawn Ultra Original Dish Soap 35 said either way
  3. Dapple Bottle & Dish Soap 13 said either way
  4. Palmolive Ultra Pure + Clear Dish Soap 42 said either way

Share of shoppers who stated an outcome for grease. Ranked by the lower bound of a 90% confidence interval, so a product needs both a good share and enough reports to rank high.

Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray Best record Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray 72 of 73 say it cuts through grease See price & reviews on Amazon
What stands out

Grease complaints cluster on one soap: 17% of Palmolive reviews say grease stayed on their dishes and 13% call it watery. The two Dawn soaps drew barely any grease complaints.

The ranking, product by product

Praise and complaints are the points shoppers repeat most, shown as a share of each product's counted store reviews.

1 Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray

Dawn

Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray

72/73 say it cuts through grease

Grease is the story here, with 72% of reviews praising how it cuts through it and 24% liking the scent. Dawn's own site agrees at 14 of 14, which we show but don't count.

What shoppers praise

  • Nice scent 24%
  • Good value 6%
  • A little goes far 5%

What shoppers complain about

No repeated complaints yet.

Where shoppers said it
  • Target 72 of 73
  • Brand site 14 of 14 shown, not counted
2 Dawn Ultra Original Dish Soap

Dawn

Ultra Original Dish Soap

35/35 say it cuts through grease

Every shopper who weighed in said it cut grease (35 of 35), and 15% call it good value. 10% say a little goes a long way.

What shoppers praise

  • Good value 15%
  • A little goes far 10%
  • Nice scent 8%
  • Gentle on hands 5%

What shoppers complain about

No repeated complaints yet.

Where shoppers said it
  • Target 35 of 35
  • Brand site 9 of 10 shown, not counted
3 Dapple Bottle & Dish Soap

Dapple

Bottle & Dish Soap

12/13 say it cuts through grease

Made for baby bottles as well as dishes, it held up on grease too (12 of 13), though fewer shoppers weighed in. 19% of reviews say it's gentle on their hands.

What shoppers praise

  • Gentle on hands 19%

What shoppers complain about

No repeated complaints yet.

Where shoppers said it
  • Target 12 of 13
  • Brand site 3 of 3 shown, not counted
4 Palmolive Ultra Pure + Clear Dish Soap

Palmolive

Ultra Pure + Clear Dish Soap

33/42 say it cuts through grease

Shoppers like how it feels, with 22% saying it's gentle on their hands and 13% praising the suds. On grease it's less sure: 9 of 42 said it didn't cut it.

What shoppers praise

  • Nice scent 26%
  • Gentle on hands 22%
  • Good value 15%
  • Good suds 13%
  • A little goes far 9%

What shoppers complain about

  • Watery, used up fast 13%
  • Too expensive 4%
Where shoppers said it
  • Target 33 of 42
  • Brand site 6 of 6 shown, not counted

Where these numbers come from

The 4 products ranked here carry 17,962 reviews at Target. We read the newest reviews of each product (up to a thousand per listing), kept the ones that talk about grease, and counted up to 40 per product, posted between Mar 2014 and Sep 2026.

A review counts only when the reviewer used the product themselves. We drop reviews written in exchange for a free product or a sweepstakes entry (3 on this page), and products that are no longer sold.

Target also shows reviews first posted on brands' own websites. We show them on product cards but never count them, because brand-site reviews run more positive than store reviews of the same products.

Because we searched for the problem, people who had it are overrepresented. Compare products with each other rather than reading a share as your own odds.

We count what shoppers report. Nothing here is safety advice: use heaters, fans and other appliances as the maker's manual says.

Amazon buttons appear only on products that most shoppers here say fix the problem (at least 60%, with enough reviews to trust it). Everything else gets no buy link.

An AI model labels each review against a fixed list of points, and we spot-check the labels before publishing. We publish counts, never the reviews themselves.

Read the full method

Product pages we read

  1. Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray Target (80 reviews counted)
  2. Dawn Ultra Original Dish Soap Target (40 reviews counted)
  3. Dapple Bottle & Dish Soap Target (16 reviews counted)
  4. Palmolive Ultra Pure + Clear Dish Soap Target (46 reviews counted)

Questions buyers ask

Which dish soap is good at cutting grease?

Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray has the best record (72 of 73), and Dawn Ultra Original Dish Soap comes next at 35 of 35. Dapple Bottle & Dish Soap (12 of 13) and Palmolive Ultra Pure + Clear Dish Soap (33 of 42) follow.

Is Dawn Powerwash better than regular Dawn for grease?

Both do very well: 72 of 73 said Powerwash cut grease, and 35 of 35 said the same of Dawn Ultra Original Dish Soap. Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray ranks first because far more shoppers weighed in on it.

Does Palmolive cut grease?

Usually. 33 of 42 said it did, but 17% of reviews say grease stayed on their dishes and 13% call it watery.

Does fragrance-free dish soap still cut grease?

In these reviews, yes. 12 of 13 said Dapple Bottle & Dish Soap cut grease, and 33 of 42 said the same of Palmolive Ultra Pure + Clear Dish Soap. Both of these are fragrance-free.

Related problems

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HiveTried earns a commission when you buy through the "See price & reviews on Amazon" buttons. It never changes the ranking: the order comes from buyer reports only, and a product gets an Amazon button only when buyers here say it works.