Which Hand Cleaners Brand Wins?
We compared 15 hand cleaners options head to head. Permatex Fast Orange Extreme came out on top. See the measured results, the runner-up, the budget pick, and a link to the full test video.
Permatex Fast Orange Extreme
Price shown in test: $30 per gallon (~23 cents/oz)
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Gojo Natural Orange
Price shown in test: $19 per gallon (~15 cents/oz)
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Force 5
Price shown in test: $10 for 96 oz (~10 cents/oz, cheapest per ounce of all 14 branded products)
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The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Scroll sideways to see all measurements. Products are listed in the order they finished.
| Product | Specs | Oil/grease jar-shake test | Tire adhesive test (10 lb downward force, 5 passes) | Roofing tar test (drill brush, ~10 seconds) | Oil/grease friends-graded final test | Tire adhesive test | Roofing tar test | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Permatex Fast Orange Extreme$30 per gallon (~23 cents/oz) | gel-like consistency, not oily/greasy, claims to eliminate gasoline/oil odors via encapsulation, assembled in USA | did a little bit better than the regular (DL) Permatex at attacking the oil | did a pretty good job, but the DL Permatex did a better job on this specific test | WINNER of this sub-test: 'the Permatex Extreme came out on top' (Gojo Original, Gojo Natural Orange, Zep TKO, and DL Permatex also performed extremely well) | beat the DL Permatex on this test as well | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 2DL Permatex regular/original Permatex hand cleaner$15 for 72 oz (~21 cents/oz) | aloe and lanolin, pasty and greasy, designed for a dispenser, assembled in USA | did not break down the oil nearly as well as the other three brands tested before it, though shaking helped | not tested | not tested | finished in 14th place (2nd-worst of 15 total entries, including the dish-detergent baseline) | WINNER of this sub-test: 'the DL Permatex definitely did the best job. Zep finished in second place, Gojo Natural Orange third, and Zolex fourth place.' | one of five brands the narrator says 'performed very well'; very close to the Zep TKO on this test | not tested |
| 3Zep TKO$21 per gallon (~16 cents/oz) | claims solvent-free, contains pumice and lanolin, designed for a special dispenser (not purchased), made in USA | visually 'doesn't seem to have done as well at breaking down the oil' compared to Force 5/Gojo, though the narrator notes product color may bias this visual read | not tested | not tested | 'performed just a little bit better than average' | 2nd place per the final adhesive ranking (behind DL Permatex, ahead of Gojo Natural Orange and Zolex); narrator notes Zep 'performed well' in a prior, separate degreaser showdown too | one of five brands that 'performed very well'; 'very close between the Gojo and the Zep TKO, but both did a great job' | not tested |
| 4Gojo Natural Orange$19 per gallon (~15 cents/oz) | contains pumice, gritty but not too oily, made in USA | comparable to Force 5; the Force 5 fluid looked a little darker in the jar but the narrator flags product color as a possible confound | not tested | not tested | 6th place ('finished in sixth place'), just behind Tub O' Scrub | 3rd place per the final adhesive ranking | one of five brands that 'performed very well' | not tested |
| 5Zolex Cherry$35 for 85 oz (~41 cents/oz) | walnut husk scrub, smells like cherry cough medicine, made in USA with globally sourced materials | 'done by far the best job yet at attacking the oily rag' among the brands tested up to that point (though its cherry color made visual comparison difficult) | not tested | not tested | WINNER: 'the second, third, and fourth finishers were pretty close, but the Zolex had a clear win' | 4th place per the final adhesive ranking, but clearly better than the Snap-on and Tub O' Scrub it was compared against head-to-head | 'did a great job... dissolving the roofing tar very quickly', clearly better than Snap-on in a direct comparison | not tested |
| 6Force 5$10 for 96 oz (~10 cents/oz, cheapest per ounce of all 14 branded products) | heavy-duty citrus base, contains pumice, skin conditioners, runny/gritty but not oily/greasy, made in USA | went to work on the oil, produced a film at the top of the jar after 30 seconds of shaking | not tested | not tested | 3rd place, 'the very affordable Force 5' | removed only a little of the tire adhesive, weakest of the brands introduced early in this test | spoken as 'Fast 5' (auto-caption homophone, resolved to Force 5 by elimination/context); accumulated a lot of tar on the brush, a solid early result | not tested |
| 7Nano Skin$30 for 120 oz (~25 cents/oz) | claims non-solvent 'magic hand soap', walnut shell scrubbers, toothpaste-like consistency, not oily/greasy, made in USA with globally sourced materials | off to a pretty good start, but Permatex Extreme did a little better | not tested | not tested | 7th place ('finishing in seventh place is the Nano Skin') | performed well but was beaten by Permatex Extreme in a direct comparison | 'really struggled on this test', bristles didn't get very dark, weak result | not tested |
| 8Joe's All Purpose Hand Cleaner (Joe's Kleen)$23 for 4.5 lb (~33 cents/oz) | contains lanolin, all-purpose formula for grease/grime/ink/fish odor/tar, made in USA | 'seems a lot like the DL Permatex, but Joe's definitely smells better' - similarly weak visual performance | not tested | not tested | LAST place (15th) of all entries including the dish-detergent baseline: 'coming in last place is the Joe's' | 'still performed well and did a little bit better than the Nano Skin' | 'performed a lot better than the Nano Skin on this test, but not quite as well as some of the other brands' | not tested |
| 9Snap-on$108 for 288 oz (~38 cents/oz) | contains pumice, pasty/somewhat oily but not very gritty, designed for a dispenser, made in USA | 'beginning to break down the oil', fluid noticeably darker than Joe's | not tested | not tested | 'finished in the middle of the pack, but it is pretty close with some of the other brands' | 'just didn't have enough grit to outperform the Joe's this time' | struggled significantly, very little tar accumulated on the brush, 'wasn't able to cut into the tar' | not tested |
| 10Tub O' Scrub$8 for 18 oz (~44 cents/oz) | claims to remove tough grime without water, biodegradable, contains lanolin/aloe/vitamin E, gel-like but not oily, made in USA | 'up against some pretty tough competition', small amount of oil at top, less than Zolex managed | not tested | not tested | 5th place, 'barely edged out the Gojo [Natural Orange]' | beaten by Zolex in a direct comparison ('Zolex seems to have done a little bit better job than the Tub O' Scrub') | 'really struggled... seems to be losing the battle with the roofing tar... really struggled compared to most of the other brands' | not tested |
| 11Full Bore Extreme Green$35 for 64 oz (~55 cents/oz) | claims no harsh solvents but contains moisturizers, dry/gritty as packaged but designed to be used on wet hands (water added per manufacturer instructions), made in USA | 'done an excellent job of breaking down the oil', paired with Zolex as a top early performer | not tested | not tested | 2nd place, spoken as 'the Full Armor finished in second place, barely ahead of the Force 5' (resolved to Full Bore by elimination, since all other 13 named brands plus the dish-soap baseline are separately accounted for, and Full Bore was consistently paired with Zolex as a top oil-test performer) | did a better job than Tub O' Scrub in a direct comparison | performed a little better than Tub O' Scrub but not as well as some other brands | not tested |
| 12Gojo Original$9 for 14 oz (~64 cents/oz) | paste-like, greasy, made in USA, narrator recalls using this specific formula 'many years ago' | 'did break down the oil a little, but not nearly as much as some of the other brands' | not tested | not tested | finished 'behind Grip Clean' (near the bottom of the ranking; exact placement uncertain, see videoNotes) | 'just did not perform quite as well as the Full Bore' | one of the strongest chemical smells of the group; 'did a great job dissolving the tar and is definitely in the top five so far' (confirmed among the closing tar-test standouts alongside Gojo Natural Orange, Zep TKO, and DL Permatex) | not tested |
| 13Grip Clean$24 for 32 oz (per-ounce price not stated in the transcript, an apparent caption gap; would compute to roughly 75 cents/oz) | dirt-infused soap, very gritty, toothpaste-like, lots of suds, made in USA | small oil layer noted, but the narrator deferred judgment until the suds settled, and no follow-up figure is given later in the transcript | not tested | not tested | described as finishing 'just behind the DL Permatex' (14th place), which would place it near the very bottom; see videoNotes for the ordering ambiguity around this section | very gritty texture, but 'didn't perform quite as well as the Gojo [Original] at removing the adhesive'; the narrator groups it with Eagle Grit as both having 'really struggled on this test' | 'seems to be doing a little bit better on the tar' than its own adhesive-test performance; removed a fair amount of tar from the test area | not tested |
| 14Eagle Grit$14 for 16 oz (~88 cents/oz, most expensive per ounce of all 14 branded products) | no solvents, no pumice, detergent-based with soft scrubbers, designed to be hand- and drain-friendly, made in USA | 'has really gone after the oil', fluid looked noticeably darker than Grip Clean's | not tested | not tested | 4th place, 'Eagle Grit did a very good job finishing in fourth place' | sandy texture; grouped with Grip Clean as both 'really struggled on this test' | 'performed almost the same as the Grip Clean on the previous round... doesn't seem to be attacking the tar quite as well as some of the other brands', slightly worse than Grip Clean here | not tested |
| 15Dawn Platinum (dish detergent, baseline/control) | not tested | 'done a pretty decent job of going after the oil', water looked notably dark afterward | not tested | not tested | 'the dish detergent actually beat some of the hand cleaners' at cutting grease - outperformed multiple purpose-built hand cleaners, though its exact placement is not given | not tested | not tested | diluted per label guidance (1 Tbsp/gallon of water; narrator used roughly 1/2 tsp in under 20 oz of water, a slightly more concentrated ratio) |
How it was tested
- oil/grease breakdown: saturating cloth pieces with used motor oil, applying each hand cleaner, then shaking in water-filled jars and comparing residual oil/water clarity
- tire adhesive removal: applying cured tire-repair adhesive to textured rubber test pieces, then scrubbing with each hand cleaner under ~10 lb of downward force for 5 back-and-forth passes and rinsing
- roofing tar removal: applying each hand cleaner to a drill-driven brush and running it over cured roofing tar for about 10 seconds, comparing tar removal from the test surface and brush
- final combined oil/grease grading by the narrator and friends, producing a full best-to-worst placement and an A-through-F grade per brand across all three categories
“For that reason, I really like the texture and consistency of the Permatex Extreme the most. It's not too gritty, does a great job of attacking the grease, and it wipes away easily.”
Data notes and caveats
14 branded hand cleaners plus an informal Dawn Platinum dish-detergent baseline (not in the official Products Tested list, tested only on the oil/grease sub-test) = 15 total entries in the final combined ranking, matching the '14th place' / 'last place (15th)' figures given in the closing recap. This video effectively has THREE different sub-test winners rather than one: Zolex won the main combined oil/grease friends-graded test outright ('a clear win'); DL Permatex won the tire-adhesive test outright; and Permatex Fast Orange Extreme won the roofing-tar test outright. Four brands (Gojo Natural Orange, Zep TKO, Permatex Extreme, Zolex) earned an A grade in all three categories on the closing scorecard, and the top-level winner/runnerUp fields above reflect the narrator's own closing personal-preference ranking (Permatex Extreme, then Gojo Natural Orange, then Zolex) rather than any single sub-test's raw winner, since that closing statement is the video's own answer to its title question ('so which hand cleaner is the best?'). The bottom of the final combined oil/grease ranking (Grip Clean, Gojo Original, DL Permatex 14th, Joe's last) has an internally ambiguous ordering in the transcript - the narration says Grip Clean finishes 'just behind' DL Permatex's 14th place and Gojo Original finishes 'behind' Grip Clean, which cannot both literally be true if DL Permatex is 14th and Joe's is last (15th) with no room between them; these are kept as verbatim relative statements rather than forced into an exact numbered rank. Two brand names are auto-caption mangles resolved by elimination against the description's Products Tested list: 'Fast 5' -> Force 5 (in the tar-test section) and 'Full Armor' -> Full Bore (in the closing oil/grease ranking). Grip Clean's per-ounce price is never actually spoken in the transcript (only its pack price and size), an apparent caption gap.