The Top Line:

NOT a buy. Petal’s Zero Waste Hand Soap cost is a bit too high for hand soap. We really like that it is zero waste and truly eliminates a lot of carbon emissions by being so lightweight. Additionally, we enjoy the light scent that relies on natural essential oil.

The Breakdown:

• Cost & Products: Petal Start Kit includes reusable aluminum bottle and aluminum can with 4 pods, $20.
  Pods of 4 are $15 each or $13 with a subscription (sent every 1, 2, or 3 months)

  Extra bottles are $10 each

• How ‘Clean’ Is This? Pretty clean from a waste perspective since the pods are quite light weight and the aluminum bottle is reusable. Pods are made from PVOH, plant-derived ingredients, and use natural fragrance from essential oils.

• Packaging: Comes in a recyclable paper box.

• Purchasing & Shipping: Website functions are a bit bizarre, ie, first you say how many soaps you’d want and then tick up the number of each fragrance — seems redundant. Otherwise, shipping was relatively fast and free for our starter kit.

• What’s Your Impact? By using Petal Hand Soap, you cut down on plastic bottles that you recycle (throw out) and you reduce emissions since the pods are so much lighter than already-made-for-you foam soaps, which are mostly water.

The Experience

Context: We have tried etee hand soap concentrate and previously had bought refills for our glass soap dispenser. Realizing it’s mostly water, we have been looking for hand soap concentrates.

• The packaging is very clearly Petal and designed ok.

• The reusable bottle is thin aluminum with a plastic pump — it’s fine, but it’s rather industrial-looking. Personally, this is not our style.

• The instructions are to drop a pod, fill with water to the line, then shake vigorously.

• We know it’s not totally scientific, an extra ounce here and there isn’t hurting anyone…but the bottle is opaque! The line on the outside of the bottle is supposed to vaguely help eyeball how much water is in there, but it doesn’t really.

• We leave room in the bottle since “shaking vigorously” can create a bunch of bubbles.

• We can’t see the inside, so we are just assuming that everything dissolved.

• We’ve been washing our hands with Petal’s Citrus Ginger Hand soap for over a week and it does smell totally natural and lovely. The scent is light.

• Petal is a little bit drying: unlike Seventh Generation’s Zero Plastic Hand Wash, we feel compelled to lotion up after every hand wash.

The Cost

We checked out typical grocery store brands and other limited ingredient hand soaps, like Cleancult, Grove Collaborative, Mrs. Meyer’s, Dawn, Seventh Generation and Soft Soap. We assumed the powdered handsoap lasted 4x longer by weight. which means, 1oz of powder is equal to 4oz of liquid handsoap.

Money Report: Petal’s Zero Waste Hand Soap is pricey, even when you consider the cheaper subscription cost. Though it is not included on here, Blueland’s Hand Soap is one of the cheapest zero-waste options at $0.28 per oz.

The Good:

✔ The Citrus Ginger Scent is delightful

✔ Pretty zero waste — the aluminum tin for the soap pouches is recyclable

✔ Natural, cruelty-free ingredients

✔ Cuts down on emissions given its light weight

✔ Depending on your style, the bottle is very industrial

The Bad:

✗ Very pricey for being green here

✗ The plastic pump looks a little bit cheap

Our Recommendation:

NOT a buy. Petal’s Zero Waste Hand Soap cost is a bit too high for hand soap. We really like that it is zero waste and truly eliminates a lot of carbon emissions by being so lightweight. Additionally, we enjoy the light scent that relies on natural essential oil.

We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!