We reviewed Meliora's refillable foaming hand soap, and we loved it.

The Top Line:

We really like using Meliora’s foaming refillable hand soap - it’s a buy from us! The soap is super concentrated, light-weight and comes in unscented as well as a few scented options like Lavender, Lemongrass, and Tea Tree. The packaging is plastic-free and the soap is also palm oil-free. We have loved Meliora’s Laundry detergent ❤️ in the past and now we can buy the hand soap concentrate all in the same shipment! Plus, it is made in the USA.

The Breakdown:

Cost & Products: $10.99 for 6 tablets that each make 8- to 9-oz soap bottles on the Meliora website.
How ‘Clean’ Is This? Very clean! No unnatural ingredients, and a very short ingredient list to boot! On top of that, Meliora offers both a scented and unscented version of the hand soap concentrates.
Packaging: Lightweight, small paper packaging that is both compostable and recyclable.
Purchasing & Shipping: Easy navigating on the Meliora site and free shipping for orders over $49.
Good to know: Given the small space that each box of hand soap refills takes up, we buy in bulk with a couple of laundry detergent bags to meet the minimum an reduce shipment of boxes.
What’s Your Impact? Significantly fewer ingredients. Like with other refillable products, fewer plastic bottles in your wake as well as reduced emissions because of the small products and lower weight.

The Good:

✔ Zero chemicals — short ingredient list!

✔ Lovely scent with the lavender option but also comes in unscented

✔ Affordable option

✔ Hands are not dry after use

✔ Dissolves well

✔ Plastic-free, Cruelty-free, Phthalate-free, and Palm oil-free

✔ Made in the USA

The Bad:

✗ None, really except that it wasn’t the absolute cheapest option

The Experience

Context: We have been refilling our glass soap pump with brands like Method, Mrs. Meyers, and any other drugstore brand that touts green ingredients in a refillable format. We typically stick to gel-like soaps, but we have been trying foam-soaps recently, with the likes of Petal, Forgo, Soap Sense, and Gelo. Here is our experience with Meliora:

Tablets are easy to use - just one tablet per 8 or 9 ounces of water
Warm water will take less time to dissolve, but cold water works just as well (which is awesome)
Lavender scent is subtle
Meliora doesn’t offer bottles - which is ok for us, we just used one of our existing pumps (not pictured)
Hands come out soft and clean, not dry 👋

The Cost

We checked out typical grocery store brands and other limited ingredient hand soaps, like Seventh Generation, Cleancult, Grove Collaborative, Mrs. Meyer’s, Dawn, and Soft Soap to compare to Meliora’s. We assumed that you would go through 160oz of soap per year.

Money Report: Not bad. The cost of Meliora’s hand soap refill tablets fall somewhere toward the end, in terms of cost, without requiring you to get a subscription. A few brands like Seventh Generation, Gelo and Soap Sense are some of the cheaper options on the list.

Our Recommendation: