Sponge Kitchen Household Scrubber Dishes Bath

Vegetable cellulose sponges made of wood fiber are used more for bathing and skin cleaning, and are usually tougher and more expensive than polyester sponges.citation needed They are considered more eco-friendly than polyester sponges as they are biodegradable and made of natural materials.

The Best Kitchen Sponges to Make Hand-Washing Dishes More Enjoyable Than You Ever Thought

You may be brand-loyal to your sparkling water or your sunscreen, but what about your kitchen sponge? If the thought of hand-washing a stack of dirty dishes for 20 minutes straight is making you squirm right now, it's possible that reaching for the cheapest sponge you can find at the grocery store might not be the best method going forward.

Whether you hand-wash all of your dishes or only the items that can't go into your dishwasher, using a Sponge Kitchen Household Scrubber Dishes Bath that isn't merely OK but actually excellent can make all the difference. We spent 6 weeks testing all of the sponges in this guide so you can swap out your usual scrubber for one that makes quick work of your daily dishwashing.

What to Consider

→ Material

Most sponges are made of plant-derived cellulose, plastic-derived polyester, or polyurethane. In our testing, we really enjoyed using the naturally derived sponges from Blueland and Public Goods because they were very gentle and felt markedly different from using a traditional plastic-derived sponge. The plastic and silicone sponges were all stiffer and took longer to soften after moistening.

While these and many other eco-friendly brands say that their sponges are compostable and contain no synthetic materials or adhesives, we strongly recommend that you check with your local composting organization before mixing them in with your regular organic food scraps.

→ Abrasiveness

Along with its soft, soap-absorbing side, a good kitchen sponge should have a little bit of grittiness to it to help scrub away stubborn gunk on your dishes. This scrubby side differs for every single sponge that we tested, from the pleasantly soft Master Clean to the texture-changing Scrub Mommy to the straight-up sandpaper-like feel of the Master Clean Sponge. Depending on your comfort level and the type of dishes you most frequently wash by hand, you may want a gentler or rougher sponge than the norm. For this reason, we rated all of our sponges' abrasiveness on a five-point scale with 1 as the least abrasive and 5 as the most abrasive.

→ Lifespan and Cleanliness

It's a good idea to find a sponge that you're OK with buying in bulk and replacing on a semi-regular basis. Using a sponge any longer than a couple of weeks is just too long. According to a new study from Nature Chemical Biology, sponges provide the ideal environment for billions of types of bacteria to live and proliferate on: Sponges are porous, moist, and usually lodged with food bits. The good news is that most of these bacteria won't make you sick — however, if your sponge comes in contact with a pathogenic strain like salmonella, it may cause cross-contamination.

After you use any type of sponge, it's a good idea to wring it out as thoroughly as you can and leave it on a channeled, elevated surface like a sponge holder to dry. Why is this important? Doing these things will help the sponge dry faster so that it doesn't become a gross breeding ground for bacteria. When your sponge starts smelling and looking dingy, it's best to get rid of it right away.

Is there anything you can do to get rid of bacteria? Some sponges that are made of resilient foam, like the Master Clean, are actually dishwasher-safe, so you can throw it in with your regular dish loads to thoroughly clean and continue using for longer. It's also been shown in a 2024 study that you can microwave your sponge to kill bacteria, although there are a lot of variables (like microwave wattage and the length of time needed) that may not guarantee that all bacteria will be killed doing this.

The one notable exception to this is by using a silicone sponge like the Sponge Kitchen Household Scrubber Dishes Bath, which can be sterilized in boiling water and reused endlessly.

How We Tested

For this guide, I tested each of these sponges for 1 week apiece on my daily pile of dishes. Because I currently work from my apartment, am an avid home cook/baker, and do not own a dishwasher, I wash at least two loads of dishes per day (sometimes three!).

After each washing, I rang out the sponge and set it on a channeled sink-side sponge holder to help the sponge dry faster and to prevent bacteria from spreading. I evaluated these sponges based on their initial firmness, comfort in hand, and their skill at soaping and scrubbing my dishes, utensils, glassware, and cookware.

Ready to start scrubbing smarter, not harder? Roll up your sleeves, cue up a podcast, and reach for one of these six superior kitchen sponges.