Does Dawn Dish Soap Unclog a Drain? I Tested It.
Does Dawn Dish Soap Unclog a Drain? I Tested It.
If you follow this blog, you may know that I have been on the hunt for a truly non-toxic, chemical-free way to unclog our constantly-clogging bathtub drain. A while back I tried the vinegar and baking soda drain clearing trick. This time around, I am going to try a new recommendation I’ve seen circulating online saying Dawn dish soap will unclog a drain.
People are claiming that putting some Dawn dish detergent in your sink, toilet or tub will clear out any gunk in the pipes like a miracle, which I am skeptical about, especially after I heard the same thing about vinegar and baking soda and was not very impressed with the results. But I already had some Dawn dish soap in the house, and the tub is running slow again, so I figured I have nothing to lose by giving it a try. Dish soap certainly won’t hurt my pipes.
Note: I don’t think your dish soap has to be Dawn, but I have noticed that when I am trying to get something greasy off a surface, like when I got a bunch of bike axle grease on a favorite pair of pants once, the Dawn really did seem to do a better job removing it than the generic soap I had been using. I am not trying to advocate for a specific brand, but this is what I had on hand anyway and I figured if Dawn doesn’t work to unclog the drain, the generic ones probably won’t work any better.
Testing Dish Soap as a Drain Opener
I like to do things scientifically, so I ran this experiment the same way as the last time with the vinegar and baking soda. The only difference was, to eliminate the possibility that I might get some improvement simply from the act of pouring hot water down the drain, I went ahead and poured some hot water down the drain first before I began the test.
The Control Test
I created a mark on the side of the tub with some masking tape.
I plugged the drain and filled the tub with water until it was level with the bottom of the tape marker.
Then I used the stopwatch on my phone and started it as soon as I pulled out the plug and timed how long it took to completely drain. It took 4 minutes and 58 seconds to drain.
Wow, pretty slow. Let’s see if we can improve that.
The Dish Soap Drain Test
I found several different methods online for ways to use dish soap in drains, including dissolving it in hot water and pouring the mixture down the drain, but I decided to go with the method that says to simply pour a whole cup down the drain and let it sit there for about an hour. The bottle I had on hand was over half empty, but there was at least a cup left in there, so I poured it all down the drain and left it to sit.
After an hour, I flushed the drain with a bunch of hot water again. There was a bit of foaming, but overall it seemed like things were draining pretty well. I was hopeful that maybe this had actually done some good in unclogging the pipes. I put the plug back in the drain, refilled the tub to the same line, and timed how long it took to drain out this time.
Final result: 4 minutes and 57 seconds. An improvement of one second. (Whomp, whomp.)
Conclusion:
I can’t call a one-second draining improvement any kind of success, so I doubt I’ll be wasting any more dish soap trying this method again. Looks like I am still on the hunt for a natural way to unclog drains. I will mention that some say dish soap is recommended mostly for greasy clogs, so maybe it would work better on a clogged kitchen drain. I’m still disappointed it didn’t work on this tub because it is a constant struggle keeping it clear, and we even use two different traps to try to keep hair out and so on.
3/11/2022 Update: Check out the results of my Bio-Clean bacterial/enzymatic drain cleaner test here.
Fantastic description of your experiment! Thank you
It does work if you do it properly. Boil a full tea kettle of water on the stove and flush the bathtub drain with 3-4 FULL pots (takes about 5 mins for pot to re-boil). After a few pots, drizzle Dawn dish soap around and down the drain and flush with another 2-3 boiling kettles. Repeat until tub drains as normal, then flush with more boiling (or at least hot) water.
I need to note the boiling water method isn’t very effective without Dawn dish soap, and the Dawn dish soap isn’t very effective without the boiling water.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad to hear it worked for you. I am willing to give it another shot, and if I get different results, I will post an update.
I tried the Dawn soap idea 2 times waited 30 minutes both times added boiling water slowly, maybe half gallon, second time hot but not boiling water same amount so far no success. Squirted some Dawn in pipe to sit over night. Took a wet vac and blew it down pipes farther. Fingers crossed!
Was going to suggest the same thing requires boiling water + dish soap. Unclogs toilets like a charm.
Sure does. Just tried it today on my clogged toilet. Thought i would try once before calling plumber. No need for plumber!!!!
Thanks for sharing your personal experience of using the dish soap and hot water to unclogging a drain. It may be useful to unclog the drain but I think we should get the help of professional plumber to do this job.
Are you a plumber?
I think the dawn is meant to clear a complete or near complete clog, where the soa can deep around the edges and lubricate the pipe until the clog pops free. We just used a cup or two on a shower drain that may have been clogged with lint from our clothes washer. It only took about 15 minutes, with me adding hot water as the drain cleared. You might try a natural bacterial drain cleaner. You usually mix it with warm water just before bed. Run hot water down the drain for a minute or two, then add the bacterial mix, and don’t run any water down the pipes for six hours. Repeat for several days. The other thing we have found helps is an 18 inch long strip of plastic with barbs on the edges that face back toward the handle. You run it down the drain, twirl it a bit, and pull it out. You’d be amazed at how much hair it will pull out in 1-2 tries.
Hi Brent, do you have a recommendation on a natural bacterial cleaner? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that.
Not Brent, but look for an enzyme cleaner. The Amazon Commercial brand works great, but it’s disappeared, so I’m back to the drawing board. It got my 80 year old tub drain with original pipes running perfectly after years of draining slow.
Good to know. I am thinking of trying one called Bio-Clean. I saw it on Amazon. I haven’t found anything at the hardware stores.
Every plumber I’ve known has said that manual unclogging is the only way to go and to regularly/weekly pour boiling water down your drains avoid clogging. Dawn dish soap has a long history of greenwashing with their toxic ingredients, you might want to research that one. Dr Bronners is one of the few out there and they sell gallon jugs directly from their website as well as are available in the bulk aisle of many sustainably minded grocery stores.
My tub was draining slowly, I took my stopper out and the top was covered in an inch of sludgy oily white stuff, my guess a combination of soap scum and body washes from my 16yo daughter. The fact that it was on top of the stopper and no one takes baths made me think the drain was really clogged and backing up the stopper pipe. I poured a few bottles of coke down the drain and it started to drain better, then I tried blue dawn let it sit for 20 min while I boiled water and poured the water down the drain. I did this three times and now the tub drains freely. I was so happy with the results I did the same with my bathroom sink. So happy I didn’t have to snake both drains.
Good to know it worked for you. Maybe I’ll give it another shot sometime.
For my bathtub, rather than boil the water, I’ll just turn the temperature on the hot water heater to MAX. Pour down a cup of Dawn, close the drain and let the tub fill with steaming hot water. When the tub is FULL, open the drain. The heat and weight of a tub full of water will push out darn near anything, especially after the Dawn loosened it up. Once the clog gets to the next-larger-set of pipes, it will flow freely down to oblivion.
A bathroom clog is generally hair…dawn is a degreaser. This is not the best example of using dawn to clear a drain. Kitchen sink grease clogs is where it shines.
Yeah, I had a feeling it might work better on kitchen drains.
Do NOT pour boiling water into a toilet. Under some circumstances this can cause the porcelain in the bowl to crack. Hot water should be fine, just NOT boiling.
Our grey water line was completely clogged due to renters using cheap, powdered laundry detergent and powdered dishwashing detergent. The chunks of gunk looked nothing short of nearly palm-sized white/gray blobs of disgusting solid mess. We initially used a waterhose outside, shoved into the grey water line and fed as far as it could go to try to move the clog. This method worked well for a lot of the gunk, however, it definitely didn’t get all of it out. We decided to try running hot water into the washer to fill it, then draining it, along with pouring hot water and dawn down the kitchen sink drain alternately. This, in conjunction with working the hose on the outside line completely cleared our lines! It was a LOT of work, but very satisfying to get it working again.
I’m trying this as I’m typing this. My dual basin kitchen sink takes 30 seconds to clog. It takes about 50 minutes to drain. We tried an auger, vinegar and baking soda, hot water from both ends, unclogging the roof vent. The rest of the house is fine, it’s just the kitchen sink and I don’t flush any fats or food down it because I can’t stand plumbing issues. But here we are. I just put a whole bottle of dawn down there and very hot tap water (i don’t want to melt the pipes with boiling water) and now we wait. It has been 10 minutes. It looks like it might be draining a teenie bit faster but I’ll let you know in 40 more minutes if it finished.