Grove Collaborative makes natural hand soap and dishwashing soap that actually gets me excited to do the dishes

• I never thought that I'd be excited by everyday household supplies like dish soap and hand soap, but the soaps from online natural home brand Grove Collaborative changed that for me.
• Its soaps are made with safe, plant-based ingredients and come in refill packs, to be used with sleek and sturdy glass dispensers. The ones I tried from the Autumn Fig Collection ($37.95) also smell amazing.
• If a company can make me look forward to washing my dishes and hands, then I'm very interested in seeing what else it can do to improve the little tasks in my life.

When I'm in the kitchen, things like an efficient, versatile pan and elegant, simple dinnerware excite me. So does a nice bottle of olive oil and protein-packed grains.

I could spend hours considering the features of cookware and food products, but I've probably only spent about 1/100th of the same time thinking about and picking out the soap in my kitchen.

That attitude is changing, though. The growing popularity of natural beauty products has me looking more closely at the ingredients in all the other products I use in my daily life. There are few products I use more every day than soap.

Grove Collaborative, an online marketplace for the best natural home and personal care products, recently sent me its Autumn Fig Collection ($37.95), which includes gel dish soap and gel hand soap.

I took on to these simple and common household supplies with surprising gusto. The scent played a big role - the sweet and rich fig scent managed to still be bright and fresh rather than cloying, and it was a refreshing change from the generically "fresh" scents of most soaps. What's great is that this fragrance is also natural, made with a blend of essential oils and other plant-based ingredients.

These soaps cleaned as well as any other I've tried before, so it's not really the cleaning ability itself that impressed me. Instead, it was that they were made of safe, plant-based ingredients and promoted eco-friendly practices. The soaps come in refill packs rather than single-use plastic bottles and can be used with Grove Collaborative's Glass Dish Soap Dispenser (16-ounce, $12.95) and Glass Hand Soap Dispenser (13.5-ounce, $10.95).

The dispensers are made from sturdy, partly recycled glass, so they're reusable and refillable. Add a silicone sleeve and they won't slip around on your sink top. Overall, they looked cleaner and more sleek than plastic bottles.

The Autumn Fig set also came with a natural soy candle, organic cotton tea towel, and European dish cloth, but it was the soaps that I loved the most because they elevated and made everyday cleaning rituals safer for my body.

Overall, they were a great introduction to Grove Collaborative's standards of sustainability, quality ingredients, and beautiful products, and I plan on exploring more of the company's offerings.

Shop the Autumn Fig Collection for $37.95 at Grove Collaborative

Shop all natural home and personal care products at Grove Collaborative