Did you know that you do not have to use dishwasher soap in your dishwasher? Neither did I. Boy oh boy, is this a money saver or what? I thought you might think so too. Lemon Essential Oil would be a great addition to this.
-The Oily Guru
I’ve been using this recipe for over a month now and it hasn’t failed me yet.
Did you know that you don’t need to buy a special detergent for your dishwasher?
Just 2 drops of regular dish soap (I use Dawn) in the dispenser combined with some baking soda totally works!
Note: DO NOT use more soap than this!!! Unless you want soap bubbles all over your kitchen floor, then be my guest.
Some people fill the soap dispenser with the baking soda. Some people just sprinkle it everywhere. Some sprinkle it on the inside of the door. I put it in the bottom of my dishwasher. It doesn’t seem to matter where the baking soda goes, but the drops of soap should go in the soap dispenser.
I am in love with this trick because before I learned this, we were paying up to $15 a case for those little dishwasher pods!
This is about a millionth of the price. (Slight exaggeration, but only slight, since I always have baking soda and dish soap on hand anyway and dish soap is way less expensive than dishwasher detergent.)
I shared this on Facebook a while ago, and my friends Bethany and Linda said they have tried it since and it worked for them too. The caveat is that they both also live in Pennsylvania, like me.
My friend Alicia tried it too and said that it did not work for her as well. She lives in a different state, which makes me wonder if how well this trick works has something to do with your water source. For example, when we lived in Florida we had ridiculously hard water and no dishwasher detergent worked very well at all, no matter what you did.
But it is so easy and affordable that it is certainly worth a try.
2 drops (no more!) of a regular dish soap like Dawn
about 2 tablespoons (I’ve never measured, but I probably use less) of baking soda.
I didn’t rinse any of the dishes in this load, so I could show you how well it works for me.
This bowl contained a cream cheese mixture that I used to make the kids stuffed French toast.
And this bowl that had been full of honey mustard sat in the sink overnight before I loaded these dishes in the morning.
You can also see that it doesn’t leave spots on glass.
Or the flatware.
The inside of our dishwasher is stainless steel and this method also seems to work well to clean the inside of the dishwasher itself.
The Oily Guru 