Dishwasher "Detergent"

So, I have to give credit where it is due. My favorite website right now is One Good Thing by Jillee. There is NO END to the amazing ideas over there...I swear that woman is pure genius! I have gotten probably 90% of my cleaning tricks and recipes from her website and I read it every day. Every. Single. Day. I may or may not be addicted.

Anyway.

For the last month or so, my dishwasher and I have not been getting along. At all. I mean, I run the thing for the purpose of NOT having to handwash my "clean" dishes. Only that's not what was happening.

Aside from the fact that my dishwasher is a dinosaur, we have hard water. And I tried a homemade detergent that includes LemiShine, which is SUPPOSED to help with that. Except for without fail, my dishes were coming out looking like this:

Ew. Doesn't look clean at all.

So last night I finally got fed up with it and went to Jillee for some inspiration. And there, I found it. A "recipe" for diswasher liquid that was so easy I couldn't believe it! But I had to give it a try.

1/2 tsp Dawn (I used blue. Supposedly that's the best, but I don't know)
1 tsp Oxyclean (I used 1/2 tsp each peroxide and baking soda, but probably should have used more)
1/2 cup white vinegar

That's it.

Like I said...I couldn't believe that that teeny amount would do any better than what I'd been doing, although I was really hoping it would!

So this is what happened....

Vinegar goes in a cup on the top rack. This is to help the vinegar disperse evenly and at the right time.

 

The rest of the stuff goes in the normal detergent spot.

 

And...GO!

 

 

 During the cycle I peeked, and this was about it for suds. Thank goodness!

 

And this was the final result!

The one on the left is washed with the old stuff.

The one on the right was the new stuff. It isn't perfect but it is MUCH better than before.

 

YAY!

 

So there you have it--my latest experiment.