Friday, March 30, 2012

I need your help!!

I don't usually ask you for advice.  I'm not the "asking" kind of gal.  I'll throw my advice at you all day long and hope you'll listen to a tidbit here and there, but to ask?  Not. Me.

But I need your help!  You see, a few weeks ago I decided it would save a TON of money if I would make my own laundry and dishwasher soap.  The jury's still out on whether it's actually cheaper to make my own laundry soap, at least using the method I found.  It does work, but I'm still in debate as to whether it's worth it.  The dish soap, though?  TOTAL flop.  I mean...it cleans the food off my dishes, sure, but it leaves a nasty white filmy residue on everything.  See here?  The left is what my glasses normally look like, and the right is what they looked like before I hand-washed them a bit ago to get the uck off.


We have hard water.  I'm guessing that's part of the problem.  But what can I do?  I would love to make my own dishwasher detergent, but if I have to hand wash everything after it's washed, that sort of defeats the purpose of even having a dishwasher, you know?

Do you make your own dishwasher detergent?  What do you use to make it?  Honestly, we've never had good luck with powdered detergent in this dishwasher.  Do you know any recipes to make liquid dishwasher detergent?

Any advice?  I'm listening!

8 comments:

Jason F. said...

What is in your Dishwasher detergent? Looks like you need some citric acid in the detergent, add some Fruit Fresh.

Elizabeth said...

It's just borax and washing soda. Where do you get Fruit Fresh?

Molly said...

Rinse them with vinegar. I either fill my sink with a vinegar solution and let them soak awhile or put a bowl of vinegar in the dishwasher and run the rinse cycle again after they have been washed. Hard water is such a pain. When we bought our new house, having a water softener was #1 on my list. Good luck!

Elizabeth said...

I put vinegar in the rinse compartment of the dishwasher and this is STILL how they turned out! :( I went last night and bought a bottle of liquid detergent...it seems to work a lot better...but I thought perhaps I could save money by making my own. Not so if I end up washing each load 3 times in the dishwasher AND once by hand, though! Ugh.

Jason F. said...

Michelle will know the isle to get Fresh Fruit from but you can get it at Wal-mart or Meijer, it's used to keep apples and bananas from during brown once cut. It's basically citric acid in powder form. The acid helps break down the hard water residue. We used to use something called LemiShine in the Dishwasher detergent isle. It's amazing but a little expensive. I also heard of someone using Lemonade flavored Kool-Aid powder as the citric acid in their dishwasher detergent.

Unknown said...

Try mixing 1 cup baking soda, 1 cup Borax, ¼ cup Kosher salt, and ¼ cup lemonade-flavored Kool-Aid. Add 2 Tablespoons of this mixture to your dishwasher’s detergent compartment, along with three drops of dishwashing liquid. Pour ½ cup of white vinegar in the bottom of your dishwasher and start the wash cycle. Hope it will help!

Unknown said...

I can completely relate. I have been having the same issues with my dishwasher. Check out some of my posts. I hope you get some good ideas. I use a combination of very hot water running in the sink before I turn the dishwasher on, and I switch among 2 eco-friendly detergent and Cascade powder.

http://allnaturalkatie.blogspot.com/2011/09/dishwasher-leaving-cloudy-film-on.html

Katrina said...

I bought a large box of Tri-sodium phosphate (TSP) at home depot, and I add 1/2-1 tsp to each load with my detergent. Works wonders! (We have hard water too!)

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