Las year we were on a quest to find a good homemade dishwasher soap recipe. Commercial soaps often left an unpleasant taste on the dishes and "healthier" brands were quite expensive. We had been making our own laundry detergent for a while, so it was time to start making our own dishwasher soap. We decided to try at least two recipes to see what we like best. As it turns out, we tried three. Here are the three recipes we tried in order of the one we liked best to the one we liked least.
We found this recipe on The Provident Prepper channel on YouTube.
Ingredients:
1 c. washing soda
¼ c. food grade citric acid
¼ c. sea salt
20 drops lemon essential oil
Directions:
Mix ingredients well. Be sure to break up any clumps. Store in a glass jar. Use 1 t. per load or 1 ½ t. per greasy load.
What we liked
The dishes were sparkling clean!
The recipe is simple.
The ingredients are non-toxic.
There was no detergent taste left on the dishes.
What we didn't like
Citric acid isn't something we usually keep on hand (this will likely change given how well this recipe works).
Overall review
This recipe was fabulous! The dishes came out so clean (no streaks, no foggy glassware) and it only takes one teaspoon per load. It is actually such a great recipe and worked so well that I don't know if we even want to try another recipe for our dishwasher.
We found this recipe on wellnessmama.com. It is very similar to the second recipe we tried, only this one includes borax.
Ingredients
1 c. Borax
1 c. washing soda
½ c. food grade citric acid
½ c. sea salt
20 – 30 drops lemon essential oil (or other citrus oil, optional)
Directions
Stir all ingredients together. Store in a glass jar. Use 1 – 2 T. per load. You can add a couple of drops of dishwashing liquid to the powder before closing the soap dispenser if you want extra cleaning power. Note: Adding too many drops of liquid dish soap will cause problems with your dishwasher.
What we liked
The dishes were clean.
The recipe is simple.
The ingredients are non-toxic.
There was no detergent taste left on the dishes.
What we didn't like
Citric acid isn't something we typically kept on hand prior to making our own dish soap (given how well this recipe and the one above work, we now plan to store a container with our other soap making supplies).
Overall review
This recipe is similar to the recipe above - it worked well! The dishes came out clean. It does say to use a bit more per load than the first recipe listed - one to two tablespoons versus one teaspoon. It also uses similar ingredients to the laundry soap recipe we use, so we had most of the ingredients already.
One load came out a bit cloudy. This could have been because we used too much detergent, because the water pressure was low, or because we had been having issues with our dishwasher. We didn't notice a lot of cloudiness, even after using up most of the jar.
Overall, this one works almost as well as the first recipe.
This recipe was the first recipe we tried and is super simple. It uses common ingredients that most people have on hand.
Ingredients:
3 t. baking soda
3 drops liquid dish soap
splash of vinegar
Directions:
Add baking soda to the soap dispenser in your dishwasher. Add 3 drops of liquid dish soap. Top with a splash of vinegar. Add vinegar to the rinse aid compartment as well, if desired.
We used this recipe as directed for several weeks. We even added vinegar to the rinse aid dispenser several times to see if it made any difference to the dishes. Below is our evaluation of how it performed:
What we liked
The recipe is simple.
It uses ingredients we always have on hand.
You can use toxin-free liquid dish soap to make this dish detergent toxin-free.
There was no detergent taste left on the dishes.
What we didn't like
The dishes didn't seem super clean.
After several washes, our glasses became cloudy.
Vinegar can erode rubber gaskets over time.
Overall review
We really didn't like how cloudy the dishes became. We won't be using this recipe again unless we are in a pinch and completely out of dishwasher detergent or the ingredients to make a detergent that performs better.
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