I Tried This Dishwashing Sponge Scrubber That’s a Favorite with Pro Cleaners — Now I’m Obsessed

When a professional cleaner identifies a product or tool as being a “favorite,” it’s hard not to consider giving it a whirl. After all, they should know, right? 

The Denver-based, self-described “Pro Cleanin Lady” Alison of Alisonscleanin on TikTok (1.1 million followers and counting) recently pledged allegiance to more than one of Sponge Yeah!’s products for dishwashing and other around-the-house cleaning jobs. 

Sponge Yeah! currently makes four different (but quite similar) products. All of them, not surprisingly, are sponges or sponge-like: the sponge, the scrubber, the sponge scrubber, and the scour pad. I ordered the variety pack of four to fully explore my options. 

Sponge Yeah! products are pretty simple, even with their many associated trademarks. Each is made from Smart Foam™, a premium foam material; Dual Scrub™, a stiffer, abrasive plastic; or both. All feature what the company dubs, Power Grooves™, which are linear indentations carved into the materials to provide force to loosen and lift stubborn food stains and messes. That sounds a lot like fancy physics, but the upshot is that you can stick things in the grooves (the rim of a pan or dish, a single rail of a crusted oven rack, etc.) for an especially effective clean. 

Sponge Yeah! touts its offerings as odor-free, scratch-fee, fast-drying, and dishwasher-safe (if your sponge is seeming extra gross, you can pop it right in there). The company also comes in big with the superlatives and, uh, science. (You’ll find an image of a beaker on the packaging so you know it’s true.) Its products are also said to be independent lab verified and proven to clean better and longer than any flat or cellulose sponge and hold more soap and water while in use.

For washing dishes, pro cleaner Alison is especially partial to the basic sponge and the sponge scrubber, the latter of which provides the power combo of the two Sponge Yeah! materials. 

So is it worth the hype? I was eager to do some of my own testing in my not-at-all sterile “lab”: my kitchen. I gravitated immediately to the sponge scrubber, as nearly everything in my sink needs both suds and a little elbow grease to get clean, and also gave the pure Smart Foam™ sponge a try. 

The takeaway? I’m impressed (and have some recommendations). 

By far, the star of the collection is the sponge scrubber. It does, indeed, create a satisfying amount of suds from a single squirt of liquid detergent. (My 10-year-old daughter, who I thought was long past playing with sudsy bubbles, was enchanted and, over an extended period of play, eventually drained our liquid soap bottle.) 

The indentations in the foam are handy for isolating the edge of a glass or a crusted spoon, but the real hero here is the more rigid plastic side, the Dual Scrub™. Run it under cold water to maintain its stiffness for more rigorous scrubbing; warm water softens the material to a more pliable, yet still effective state.

And while the rough scouring surface of the sponge is essentially thousands of tiny pockets you’d expect to collect and trap bits of food, etc., I didn’t find that to be the case. A good rinse and squeeze and it was clean. So far, in terms of durability, the sponge scrubber is faring much better than my go-to cellulose sponge that has one slightly rougher side and tends to get pretty nasty-looking fairly quickly.

Following pro cleaner Alison’s lead (who now has a sponsored post promoting Sponge Yeah!), I attacked other areas of my kitchen and home with the Sponge Yeah! products. While they did a fine job, I didn’t have any Magic Eraser-level revelations. But the sponge scrubber for hand-washing dishes, while a bit chunkier in mass, is very likely edging out my longtime cellulose sponge. No wonder they call it the “all-in-one queen of the sink.” I for one, am bowing down (and cleaning up).

Buy: Sponge Yeah! Sponge Scrubber 3 Pack, $11.99