Are Dropps vegan?

I googled “are Dropps vegan” because I was interested in Dropps‘ low-waste laundry and dishwashing detergent pods. The Philadelphia-based company is well known for their “eco-friendly and sustainable” products that aim to eliminate single-use plastic, and they proudly advertise themselves as “cruelty-free.” The top search result seemed to imply that they are vegan. Sadly, this is NOT the case for most of their products.

This search result linked to a two year old Facebook post which they took down after I reached out. Here’s a screenshot of what the post said.

The front page of Dropps website currently boasts, “By using Dropps, you are helping turn the tide against toxic pollution, plastic waste, and animal cruelty.”

But, since they sell obviously not-vegan wool dryer balls, I decided to look around their website for more information. As of January 12, 2021, their website FAQ has absolutely nothing about whether their products are vegan. They do have a long, humane-washing paragraph about how happy the sheep are in New Zealand where they source their wool – usually a red flag.

So, I reached out to Dropps customer service. If you prefer, you can scroll past the below correspondence to see a list of which Dropps products are vegan.

Replies from Dropps Customer Service

At first I received the following response on 1/12/2021:

“Thank you for reaching out to us to double check! The enzymes in our Stain & Odor, Oxi Booster, and Dishwasher products use enzymes as part of the manufacturing process, so they are technically not vegan. I can confirm with you that all of our Sensitive Skin products are 100% vegan as these do not contain the same enzymes. ”

Because many enzymes used in cleaning products are in fact vegan, I wrote back for clarification. Perhaps the customer service agent assumed there are no vegan enzymes. But sadly again, not the case. They wrote back again on 1/12/2021:

“I’m so sorry for the misunderstanding! The enzymes we have in our Stain & Odor, Dishwasher, and Oxi Pod formulas contain milk proteins as part of the manufacturing process, so these products are not vegan. Our Sensitive Skin pods do not contain these enzymes, so they are completely vegan!”

and on 1/16/2021:
“I can confirm that our Fabric Softener Pods are vegan as well, as these do not contain enzymes either. ”

So here is a list of Dropps products by vegan status.

Dropps Vegan Products

Dropps Sensitive Skin Detergent for Laundry – Vegan
Dropps Fabric Softener – Vegan

Dropps Not Vegan Products

Dropps Stain & Odor Detergent for Laundry – NOT Vegan
Dropps Small Loads for Laundry – NOT Vegan
Dropps Dishwasher Detergent – NOT Vegan
Dropps Oxy Boosters – NOT Vegan
Dropps Dryer Balls – NOT Vegan

It leaves us with the question – did Dropps change their formula? Or was that a cynically vague Facebook-post – after all they never wrote “all our products are vegan.”

For a low-waste vegan laundry detergent, try Tru.Earth (affiliate link) strips. When I find a suitable low-waste dishwashing option, I’ll include that here.

Here’s a list of vegan laundry detergents and vegan dishwashing detergents.