Dish Voila--Quest for Cheap and Natural Dishwasher Detergent

I mentioned in my last post there would be more on natural cleaners. There are lots of recipes on line, but I didn't want to post anything until I had tried it and I liked it. So, after many loads of chalky dishes, I have solved the cheap and natural dishwasher detergent mystery.

My dishwasher has always left a chalky film on my dishes. Different detergents left varying degrees of chalky, but no matter how light the gritty film is on a glass, you still don't want to drink out of it. I tried Jet Dry, no bueno, no worko, mucho gritto. So, when I tried my natural concoction, no surprise, the dishes came out gritty.

Tuesday night, after I re-washed all of my glasses and silverware by hand, and kicked the dishwasher a few times, I decided to do a little research on-line. I realized my problem was not the detergent, but the hard water build up in the washer. The miracle product that is the rage on all the natural mommy blogs is Lemi-Shine, available at Target and The Store That Must Not Be Named.

Really I think it is just citric acid, but it really does work like a miracle. You put it in the detergent cup, run your dishwasher empty for about 5-10 minutes, stop the dishwasher and leave the water in it overnight, and then finish the cycle in the morning.

I did my first load of dishes in my clean dishwasher with my homemade detergent last night and they came out clean and slick, no grit!

So here is the recipe for homemade dishwasher detergent that works!

1 cup baking soda

1 cup borax

2 packets of Lemonade Koolaid mix.
(you know the kind that doesn't have the sugar.
It is just citric acid with a little artificial flavoring)

Put 1 TBS in the pre-wash cup and 1 TBS in the wash cup.

Use White Vinegar instead of Jet Dry.