Amazing Dishwasher Detergent!

I had been making my own dishwasher detergent and though it was cheaper, WAY cheaper, it just wasn't doing it's job. There was always spots and it my glasses were always cloudy and I had to wipe them down with a towel to get them kinda sparkling. Anyways, we ended up going back to Cascade Power Packets because we were working twice as hard as needed to get our dishes clean. I mean that's what the dishwasher is for anways, right? To cut your work in 1/2.

Then I came across a pin on Pinterest titled "Another DIY Dishwasher Detergent" that had a few more ingredients then the one I was using did. I had everything except LemiShine so I thought I'd buy it and try it out. It was only like $2.50 or something around that price.

This was so much cheaper than Cascade and cleaned SO much better! I mean, not a SPOT was on my dishes, all the food was gone, no residue and even my casserole dishes looked amazing! Where has this detergent been all my life?!?!

So here's the results:

SPOTLESS!

So here's the ingredients:

1 cup Borax
1 cup washing soda
½ cup *salt

½ cup *citric acid (double this if you have hard water) (*I used 1 cup Lemishine found next to the rinse aids in the dishwasher-soap isle at Wal-Mart.) (You can also find citric acid in the canning isle, but I think you get more Lemishine for the money.)

Use 1 Tbsp per load.  Use white vinegar in the rinse aid compartment of your dishwasher to help keep your dishes from getting spotty.

If you buy the blue rinse aid stuff at the store look at spending $3.75 or more per 30 loads.  If you use white vinegar, you’ll be spending about $0.06 per 30 loads. Hello!

This recipe will clump. To reduce clumping, add a few tablespoons of rice in a cheese cloth and tie it up.  The rice will pull out the moisture and keep the detergent from clumping. I had heard putting 2 of the normal size marshmallows in your brown sugar will help it not clump and I wonder if it would do the same thing here...

Disclaimer: If you have hard water, you may have to adjust the amount of citric acid (or LemiShine) that you use, to keep your dishes from getting cloudy.  Also, it said that some people have had problems with the kosher salt being too abrasive on their dishes, because of the larger crystals.  I use regular table salt and have had no problems. If you use table salt, you may want to get the kind without iodine, but that’s what I had, so that’s what I used