It seems that with each Fresh product that I try, I grow increasingly impressed with the cosmetic company’s overall quality, and specifically with their ability to create effective bath products that won’t irritate sensitive skin.

The Fresh product that I’ve tried most recently is their Milk Hand Wash. I’d seen the positive review that fellow Epinions member forkids posted for the product, and I decided to see if Fresh Milk Hand Wash could solve one of my current entertaining dilemmas: the problem of the guest bathroom soap dispenser.

Although I’m not terribly Martha-Stewart-like when it comes to decorating, I did somehow manage to put together an eclectic, yet well-decorated, guest bathroom. The shower curtain, the artwork, and the guest towels all coordinate wonderfully, but the imported Italian ceramic accessories are what make the room come together, or fall into place, or whatever it is they say when a room looks smashing on TLC’s Trading Spaces.

I’d long kept the matching ceramic pump-action soap dispenser supplied with hand soap refills from Bath and Body Works, but they went and changed the formula, rendering it too thick for the pump on the ceramic dispenser. I tried other brands, but couldn’t find anything that smelled quite right to me. Everything was either too floral or too soapy or simply not appealing.

But I’d spent far too much money on my fancy soap dispenser to let it sit idle while my guests pumped soap from a tacky plastic container! I was hoping that Fresh Milk Hand Wash would come to my rescue and save my soap dispenser from unemployment.

Sadly, this was not to be the case. As forkids so wisely observed in her review, Fresh Milk Hand Wash is a very rich hand soap. My lovely ceramic soap dispenser had once again been bested by an extra-thick hand soap.

However, unlike the less expensive hand soaps that I’d tried, I really did like the packaging of Fresh Milk Hand Wash. The lotion itself is a creamy, pearlescent shade of off-white. It’s held in a simple 8.3 ounce clear plastic container with an ascetically pleasing swirled, spiraling pump. Rather than adorning the bottle with strange fish or frou-frou flowers or a prominent and obvious brand name, the thick clear plastic bottle has very little lettering or decoration. The front of the bottle has the brand and line in barely visible simple typeface, and the back of the bottle has a more visible listing of the ingredients. Since the plastic bottle looks so much nicer than one might expect, I decided to leave it out on the counter and fill my empty ceramic soap dispenser with a lightweight hand lotion.

Problem solved, sort of.

I can live with the Fresh Milk Hand Wash bottle sitting out on my bathroom counter, but can I live with a hand soap that costs $20 a bottle? Is Fresh Milk Hand Wash effective enough to make it worth the expense?

I’m still wavering on this one, but I’m inclined to say that it really is worth it. Whereas I used to use two or three full pumps of the less-expensive hand soap that I was using previously, Fresh Milk Hand Wash is so rich that just a pea-sized drop will produce sufficient lather to get my hands clean. I’ve used my bottle for a month now and I’ve barely used a quarter of a bottle. With the less expensive brands, I was using 8 ounces a month. So the initial purchase price is higher, my total expense per month is roughly the same with either brand of soap.

Another thing to like about Fresh Milk Hand Wash is that it’s extremely moisturizing. With most brands of soap, my hands feel so dry immediately after washing them that I have to apply lotion right away. With Fresh Milk Hand Wash, I often don’t have to apply lotion at all. Fresh puts several moisturizing ingredients right into the soap, making it much less harsh and drying than the offerings of the competition. The ingredient list includes glycerin, aloe extract, milk powder, shea butter, sweet almond oil, and a few other items that are designed to keep one’s hands moist.

I am very particular about how products smell, and I find the scent of Fresh Milk Hand Wash to be very pleasing, even if I can’t figure out exactly how to describe it. There’s no floral scent or fruit scent; it’s probably more of a cocoa butter / dairy fragrance. The scent is very subtle and hardly noticeable.

While the purchase cost of Fresh Milk Hand Wash may seem unreasonable, it truly is in a class above other liquid soap products. It’s gentle, luxurious, and sensitive skin friendly. Its dispenser is understated and appealing, so you won’t hesitate to leave it out on the counter. Since a little goes such a long way, it is a comparable value to other less expensive hand soaps. Fresh Milk Hand Wash is an all-around excellent product, and I’ll certainly continue to keep it on my shopping list.

Ingredients: water, cocamidopropyl betaine, glycerin, peg-120, methyl glucose dioleate, peg-7 glyceryl cocoate, orris root extract, glycol distearate, calendula extract, laureth-2, peg40 hydrogenated castor oil, glyceryl oleate, aloe extract, laureth-3, milk powder, whey protein, aflantoin, shea butter, sweet almond oil, lauryl glucoside, daisy extract, wheat germ oil, imidazolidinyl urea, polysorbate 20, tocopheryl acetate, peg 35, castor oil, phenoxyethanol, methyl paraben, ethyl paraben, propyl paraben, butyl paraben



Recommended: Yes