Back here, the Old School discussed what happens when you use liquid dish soap in your dishwasher, and what to do to temporarily tide you over until your next trip to the market.
But is it possible to make your OWN dishwasher detergent? To use on a regular basis, not as an emergency substitute? Can you really unhook from the crazy that is the price of Cascade?
The Damsel is happy to inform that yes, you can easily make your own. As a matter of fact, the hardest part is trying to buy the ingredients: washing soda and borax. Apparently, these were pretty common items in the olden days, but are harder to find now.
Both of these items are considered laundry boosters, and generally that’s where you’ll find them at the store: in the laundry aisle. Borax is pretty easy to find. It’s the washing soda that’s tricky.
After sufficient sleuthing and you still come up empty, you COULD buy this. The ingredient is the same: sodium carbonate. The Damsel bought this at Wal-Mart in the pool/spa chemical aisle. However, it’s twice as expensive this way. $7 vs. $3.50.
If you’re interested in making other homemade cleaners as well, it’s worth it to keep hunting down the washing soda. It shows up in many cleaner recipes.
To make it, all you do is mix equal parts of washing soda and borax. The Damsel measured one cup of each into a container and stirred. That is all.
To use, try one tablespoon first and see how your dishes look. If you have a compartment that looks like this, fill the little side with the mixture and the big side with vinegar. This will help the glassware come out looking great.
The Damsel hesitates to give this an enthusiastic review. She’s only tried it once so far, and while most of the dishes looked perfectly clean, some didn’t. To be fair, she has extremely hard water and her dishwasher is trying to die. No dishwasher should have to work as hard as hers. She’s going to try it again, with a little more detergent and possibly adding the vinegar to the rinse cycle rather than in the dispenser. This will require more vigilance and hovering than she’s used to, but that is her plan.
The best place I’ve found to buy washing soda is at the grocery store in the laundry isle. For whatever reason, I can never find it anywhere else.
I use borax, washing soda, and a shaved/grated bar of my homemade lavender soap for washing clothes…sometimes I put it in a big bucket and add water for a couple of days to make liquid detergent.
What is special about washing soda? Is it different from baking soda? I know that might sound like a silly question – but isn’t baking soda just sodium carbonate? Wait…it’s sodium bicarbonate. Is the extra carbon the problem? A better question might be why do I sound like a chemistry geek?
Beware Damsel, I made this exact same detergent last summer and it nearly killed my dishwasher. The build up is horrible, horrible, horrible. After about two weeks of using the stuff my dishwasher made horrible noises and really had to huff and puff to complete a cycle. The only thing I found that helped subdue it was insane amounts of jet dry. Which, if you’re trying to help the enviroment, or save money, is not the best thing. Seriously it was bad, people looked at my perfectly clean, albeit mineral crusted dishes and refused to eat off of them. I wish it wasn’t so but, alas, it is. Of course I only discovered this after buying up quite A LOT of washing soda online. Poo.
Yeah…my dishwasher has been breaking too. OF course, my dishwasher is ME!!! It’s true. I’ve been too lazy to do dishes today. No wonder we had to eat out tonight.
Nikol, good question…I wondered the same thing. I guess they act SORT OF the same but not exactly. You have the chemistry part down right, you scholar you.
I’m still waiting to see how I like this after a few more days. So far, it’s working really well, but as you might have seen above, others have had trouble.