I'm saying goodbye to Dawn.

TL/DR: Based on my experience, my personal recommendation is to use whatever dishwashing liquid you already have and like for pretreating. All of them work about the same for pretreating stains.

Like many others, I was once a huge fan of Liquid Dawn, especially the Original Blue. It was an iconic product that I grew up using to wash dishes that didn’t make it into our family dishwasher. My mother and grandmother used the same product, and my great-grandmother remained a Palmolive Girl until the very end.

I loved the Original Blue — the scent, the cleaning power, and the nostalgic feeling it brought me. When I moved out on my own, I continued the tradition, purchasing it exclusively for years.

However, there was one issue: over time, it would leave sponges smelling unpleasant. Other dishwashing liquids didn’t have this problem.

Then, almost exactly a year ago, Procter & Gamble made a major change to the formula. They altered the scent and weakened the cleaning power. I could have lived with a weaker formula, though I wasn’t happy about it, but the new fragrance is absolutely awful. It smells like a misguided mix of Febreze and perfume, making washing dishes an unpleasant task.

This change has been discussed extensively on the Cleaning Tips subreddit, but not as much in the Laundry subreddit. One aspect that hasn’t been thoroughly explored is the stain-removal capabilities of dishwashing liquids. So, after conducting extensive tests, I want to share my findings.

Dishwashing liquids like Dawn are blends of surfactants, which work great on greasy stains. Grease repels water, which prevents regular detergent from fully penetrating fabrics and removing the oil. Dishwashing liquids break down grease and turn it into a water-soluble substance, making it easier to wash away.

While Dawn is great for greasy stains, it’s not effective on oxidizable stains like red wine or grass stains. But over the past several months, I’ve been testing a range of oily stains, including butter, olive oil, salad dressing, mayonnaise, and suntan oil.

I applied these stains to several white fabric swatches and washed them using Eco’s Liquid Laundry Detergent (the weakest laundry detergent I could find to evaluate stain removal power). I then applied different dishwashing liquids — full strength — directly to the stains, dabbed them in, and washed the fabrics.

Surprisingly, there was no significant difference in stain removal between Palmolive, Dawn, Ajax, Great Value, Joy, or Seventh Generation. All of them performed consistently well, with no clear standout in terms of lifting and breaking down the greasy stains.

Personal Recommendation:

Based on my experience, my personal recommendation is to use whatever dishwashing liquid you already have and like for pretreating. I also want to emphasize that I do not believe Dawn PowerWash should be directly sprayed onto fabrics. It’s difficult to rinse out of fabrics, and it doesn’t offer any tangible benefit over regular dishwashing liquids.

To wrap this up, I’ve been very happy with Palmolive Oxy and Great Value Dishwashing Liquid (in Blue). Both remind me of what I loved about the Original Blue Dawn and perform just as well, if not better.

As tone-deaf and inconsiderate as P&G has been with this formula change — and their lack of effort to address consumer concerns — I think it’s time we stop purchasing and recommending Blue Dawn. It’s no longer the product it once was, and there are plenty of great alternatives out there.