I used dish washing liquid or laundry soap. Also, re toys that say "surface wash only", if they were stuffed toys I would still put them in the wahsing machine on the "hand wash" cycle and then make sure they were removed as soon as the cycle was finished and brushed over with my hand (to put back in shape) and then put somewhere to dry. We never 'lost' any toys this way, although DH put her favourite in the machine, not on handwash and left it - suffice to say that Yellow Meow never looked the same again. DD didn't care though.