Natural Dishwasher Detergent

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Well, we were using soap nuts for our laundry when we realized that we were still washing our dishes in the usual grocery-store stuff. And worse, the cheapest brand they had, which was so strongly chemical-smelling I could hardly stand it. And THAT was on the dishes?! That we eat off nightly?!

Enough. There had to be a better option.

I started searching online and found this recipe:

*1 part baking soda
*1 part borax

I bought some (that stuff is CHEAP!) and mixed it up and tried it. Initial tests were great! The dishes looked a bit cleaner than they usually did. I think it was removing some of the residue left by the chemical stuff.

But over time, I grew much less enamored with it. My glasses grew cloudy, and bits of food or other yuck got stuck to them. Half the dishes weren't even clean. We actually bought a new dishwasher, and got the same result. Worse, brown and white powdery stuff was building up on all my plastic, including the inside of the dishwasher itself. Yuck. You can read Kitchen Stewardship's adventure and see that Katie concluded about the same thing I did about this at-home recipe.

We decided to try soap nuts next. I took a handful (maybe 20?) and boiled them in water until I got a nice brown liquid. To this I added a few drops of lemon and orange essential oils. This isn't necessary and I don't always do it, but it helps the smell a little. I haven't noticed any difference in cleaning the dishes though.

This mixture was better. The dishes were cleaner. No more white, powdery residue on my plastic (the dishwasher itself still has the residue, but maybe it just needs cleaned first? I tried to sponge it off but I was feeling impatient and didn't do a very good job). The glasses are sometimes spotted, sometimes not. The dishes are at least clean and rarely need re-washing. This is acceptable to me, and really, we did buy a refurbished, bottom-of-the-line dishwasher, so how do I know it's not partially my dishwasher? Or that we have hard water (we do)?

The verdict is, soap nuts are the best homemade option so far. Anyone have other ideas they want to share with me?

I hear that Biokleen and Mrs. Meyer's make great natural options, but frankly, I can't bring myself to pay that much when I have some natural options I can make it home that are "okay." If nothing worked I'd break down and do it, but if it WORKS, even if things don't look fabulous (I mean, at this point, it's only the clear glass that's even a bit cloudy...not my blue glass plates!)...I'll stick with it.

By the way, none of these are affiliate links and I don't get paid anything to do this...I'm just sharing what I know.

What do you use to wash your dishes? What works the best for you?