‘I thought it was just me’: Woman says Dawn Platinum soap made her sick. And she can taste ‘leftover’ soap on her dishes

A woman is going viral on TikTok after alleging that Dawn Platinum dish soap leaves a strong odor on her dishes.

Lyss (@lyss.k) says she thought she was the only Dawn user who got sick after using the platinum version of the brand’s soap on her dishes. Then she came across another content creator with similar issues. 

“I thought it was just me,” Lyss says. As of Tuesday, her video detailing the health issues she suffers after using Dawn Platinum wash amassed more than 379,000 views. 

Does Dawn Platinum make its users sick? 

According to Lyss and at least one other content creator, Dawn Platinum leaves a strong smell behind. Lyss says the odor is so powerful that she feels like she’ll “pass out” from the fumes. 

The content creator says she noticed these supposed fumes after cleaning her pots and pans with Dawn and then using those same dishes to reheat food the following day. As a result, she says a bottle of dish soap she purchased “months ago” still isn’t empty.

“It has taken me so long to use it,” Lyss said of her Dawn soap. 

Lyss alleges that she can “taste” the leftover soap on her dishes. At first, she says, she thought something was wrong with her pots and pans. But after seeing another content creator speak about their issues with Dawn Platinum, she says she realized the issue was universal.

“I need to know if anybody else is going through this,” Lyss says. 

Users say Dawn Platinum has a powerful smell 

Lyss and the content creator whose video she stitched aren’t the first two people to allege that Dawn Platinum has a pungent odor. In a post from the r/chemistry subreddit from 2024, another user says the soap smells like “vomit.”

“There has been a chorus of folks upset with the smell of Dawn Platinum (the classic ‘blue refreshing rain scent’),” the Redditor wrote.

They claim that the brand was “reformulated” and the resulting smell has been described by buyers as similar to “vomit, [a] corpse, [or] liquid death.”

The Redditor also echoed Lyss’s assertion that the soap stays on dishes and surfaces “long after they’ve been washed.”

Did the manufacturer really change the soap’s formula? 

The website for Dawn alleges that the platinum version of its soap underwent a formula change. However, not everyone appears happy with the result. 

In some reviews for the soap, posted to Home Depot’s website, some users complained about the “Refreshing Rain” variant. They said it had a strong, unpleasant scent compared with previous versions of the soap.

That said, the core cleaning power of the product is believed to remain largely the same. 

@lyssss.k Powerwash and PLATINUM- not original that everyone loves ????????????#dishsoap #fyp ♬ original sound - lyss k ????

Viewers give Dawn Platinum mixed reviews 

In the comments section of Lyss’s video, some commenters say that they, too, are unable to use Dawn’s Platinum dish soap. 

“The Platinum smells CRAZY,” one user wrote. “I accidentally bought it instead of the regular blue Dawn and I hate it.”

“THE PLATINUM ONE IS SO BAD AND SMELLS HORRIBLE FOR AT LEAST A YEAR NOW,” another commented. They added that she warned her family about the change in the soap’s formula. 

“The power wash dish soap makes me cough,” a third viewer said. 

“I stopped using this bc my nose would burn so bad every time I was washing my dishes,” a fourth user added.

The other half of Dawn users, though, say they use the soap regularly and don’t experience any issues.

“I’ve been using this soap for years, I’ve never had this problem,” one woman wrote. “You guys aren’t rinsing your dishes properly.”

“You guys are using too much,” another viewer claimed. “This stuff is extremely concentrated. You need only a pea-sized drop!!”

“I never had this issue and used it for years,” a third person said of Dawn’s Platinum soap. 

The Daily Dot has reached out to Lyss via TikTok comment. We also reached out to Procter & Gamble (P&G), which manufactures Dawn soap, through email.

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