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The 4 Best Soaps To Wash Baby Bottles

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by Margeaux Baulch Klein

Finding the proper dish soap to clean baby feeding gear can be tricky because you may want to avoid unnecessary scents and harsh chemicals but you still want it to be effective. Thankfully, the best soaps to wash baby bottles can meet your needs. These fragrance-free liquids are made with safe ingredients that will effectively remove milk, formula, or other gunk that's built up inside without leaving any residue or odor behind.

When you're shopping for baby-friendly dish soap, or really any product that will come into contact with your infant's sensitive skin, a hypoallergenic and/or pediatrician- or dermatologist-tested label a good indicator that the ingredients won't cause any irritation or trigger allergies. Similarly, avoiding sulfates, dyes, and fragrances can give you further peace of mind that what you're using is safely lifting grime.

Another thing to think about is the type of soap texture you prefer: liquid or foam. While foaming soaps may offer decent water savings, keep in mind that the amount of suds produced doesn't indicate how effective soap is at cleaning. With so many baby products to keep track of, you may also appreciate a multipurpose concentrated solution that gives you more bang for your buck because you can use it for other things (like as a body wash or all-purpose cleaner), though you will need to dilute it first.

Finally, if you're wondering how often you should be cleaning your bottles, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends doing so after every feeding, which makes it a significant chore. For that reason, time-pressed parents may want to also want to lean on their dishwasher for the task, as long as your items are indicated as "dishwasher safe." Either way, always remember to take the bottle apart so each individual piece is washed separately.

Below, you find a list of the best soaps for washing baby bottles to get you started.

1. This Liquid Dish Soap With More Than 6,700 Glowing Reviews

This Dapple dish soap is one of the most popular options on Amazon having amassed an average 4.8-star rating from more than 7,000 reviewers, with a majority raving about its effectiveness and how clean baby parts turn out using it when compared to regular dish soap. "I typically never write reviews, but I love Dapple so much I felt like I needed to," wrote one fan. "The difference is incredible! It removed all of the breast milk residue from all of the bottle parts." The fragrance-free and hypoallergenic formula is also pediatrician- and dermatologist-tested and made without parabens, SLS, SLES, phthalates, synthetic dyes, alcohol, and chlorine. The handy pump bottle also boasts the seal of approval from The Clean Label Project, which means the non-profit organization has run a variety of third-party tests to verify the label's accuracy and truthfulness.

This value pack pictured here gives you the convenience of full three bottles to get started and then you grab one of the brand's two larger refill options (these 30-ounce bottles or this two-pack of 34-ounce softshell bags).

2. And This Popular Foaming Bottle Soap

Though the price for its size is fairly comparable to the product above, this fragrance-free Babyganic dish and bottle soap sets itself apart with its foaming consistency, which according to several Amazon shoppers, has an advantage because "a little goes a long way." Added one fan, "It claims to require less water since it foams right out of the bottle, and I have noticed that that is the case. I use less soap to clean, and the foam lasts forever, allowing you to clean more bottles with less soap." The non-allergenic and dermatologist-tested liquid is also free of phosphates, phthalates, alcohol, and dyes and comes in a convenient pump dispenser (and you can easily refill them with one of the brand's large 32-ounce bottles, too).

3. A Concentrated Soap That's So Versatile

No matter which version of Dr. Bronners Pure-Castile liquid soap you come across, there's inevitably a trail of high praise from users behind it because it serves so many purposes beyond being a traditional "soap." This Baby Unscented version, in particular, has earned a high 4.8-star average rating with more than 6,700 Amazon shoppers weighing in, and it makes for a great fragrance- and chemical-free option for scrubbing baby bottles (note: because it's a concentrated liquid, the brand recommends using one part soap to 10 parts water for best results). Featuring 90% organic ingredients, including coconut oil, olive oil, and jojoba oil— and zero synthetic preservatives, detergents, or foaming agents — it's gentle but effective, so much so that many fans reported reaching for it in areas outside of the kitchen, too. Other popular uses include as a body wash, a household cleaner, and even a laundry detergent.

4. These Dishwasher Pods Formulated Specifically For Bottles, Pump Parts, & More

For those days when you prefer to clean any of your baby gear — bottles, pump parts, chew toys, sippy cups, and more — in the dishwasher instead of handwashing, you can reach for these Dapple detergent pods, which are formulated similarly to the brand's dish soap above but optimized for use in your appliance. The fragrance-free liquid is also free of parabens, SLS, SLES, chlorine bleach, phthalates, mineral oil, and synthetic dyes, and couldn't be any easier to use — just drop one sealed pack into your machine, and your items will come out, as one user attested, "totally clean."

5. You May Also Like: This Cult-Favorite Bottle Brush

More than 3,200 Amazon shoppers have given this OXO bottle brush an average 4.8-star rating because it is, as one put it, "10 times better than any of the cheap brushes out there." It's designed to reach all of the nooks and crannies in an array of bottle sizes (wide and narrow mouths) and is dishwasher-safe and BPA- and PVC-free. Plus, it comes with two convenient features: a silicone pipe brush to clean the inside of nipples (there's a compartment for it at the bottom of the stem) and a stand to store the tool upright, thus allowing for it to dry as quickly as possible. And perhaps the best part? You never have to buy a whole new brush again because can simply swap in a replacement brush head, instead.