outside the labs

Best Store-Brand Hand Soaps

We tested soaps from Aldi, Amazon Basics, Sam’s Club, Target, Trader Joe’s, and Walmart. Our top pick removes dirt in 7 seconds, looks cute on your counter, and costs $3.99.

By Lisa Fogarty
Home & Trends Writer

June 20, 2025

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CR tested six store-brand hand soaps by timing how long they took to clean potting soil off our hands, remove garlic smells, and more.

Photo: Lisa Fogarty/Consumer Reports

For those on a strict budget, this isn’t the time to splurge on luxury $80 hand soaps that smell like a complex bouquet of wildflowers and look great in our bathrooms but serve the same purpose as their $5 counterparts. We need hand soaps to liberate our hands from dirt, rid them of nasty smells, and not dry out our skin. Bonus points for aesthetic packaging—just because we want to save money doesn’t mean we don’t want cute homes.

In this article

Hand Soaps We Tested: Amazon Basics Equate Aloe Vera Lacura Aquarium Member's Mark Aloe Vera Moisturizing Trader Joe's Sea Breeze Castile Up&Up
How We Tested Hand Soaps

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Lisa Fogarty

Lisa Fogarty is a senior multimedia content creator at Consumer Reports. She studied journalism at Columbia University and has written numerous health, parenting, fitness, and wellness articles for The New York Times, Psychology Today, Vogue, and NPR. Lisa is passionate about mental health and is a co-creator of The Hunger Trap Podcast, which focuses on eating disorders. In her spare time she surfs, plays the guitar, and kickboxes. Follow her on X: @lisacfogarty