After seeing a post on Facebook about making your own dishwasher tabs, I decided to try my hand at it. I mean, they charge enough for the dang things at the store, and who knows what kind of crap they're loaded with, so I figured it would e a worth while experiment.
The recipe seemed simple enough, and showed a pic of the cute little tabs in ice cube trays. It called for Borax, washing soda, Epsom salt, and lemon juice. I went to the local Wal-Mart and managed to get all of my ingredients as well as the ice cube trays which were pretty cheap, and hit up the grocery store for the lemons.
The instructions say to divvy up the dry mix into 1 cup increments to mix in the lemon juice (it makes it a little easier to do and distribute), but naturally I ignored that step and managed to mix it all together just fine in one lump amount. I had recently bought some lemon essential oil so I decided to add about 20 drops of that for an extra cleaning boost. I mixed until it was a somewhat moist consistency, then began filling the ice cube trays. The powder is pretty loose, so I packed them down a little, then hit them again with more powder, then packed them down one final time.
It says to let them sit for a minimum of 24 or up to a few days to dry out completely. I don't have that much patience, so I popped one out exactly 24 hours later and it was perfectly dry and hard. All of them popped right out of the trays very easily and in the end I had about 2 dozen of them. So far so awesome!
I was pretty antsy to try them out so I gathered every dirty dish I had and ran a load with my new tabs. The first load result? Disappointment. I know, so sad right? Most of the dishes came out perfectly clean and I couldn't tell much of a difference. But a few dishes were left with this white powdery residue and some of the glasses were cloudy.
I went back to the site and read a few of the user comments. A few people had talked about this and said that adding citric acid to the mixture helped a ton. Well, I wasn't about to waste these so I opted to try another suggestion, which was to put a cup of white vinegar on the top shelf when you run the load. The blog also suggested adding 3 drops of liquid Dawn on top of the tab, but no more or your kitchen could ne taken over by suds. Whew, scary thought.
I ran the same exact load over again with both new steps. The glasses seemed better, but the white residue was still there. I found out that you actually have to hand scrub that powdery stuff off, as it won't come off in the dishwasher.
So I waited a day or two until I had another load, and tried the tab, 3 drops of Dawn, and a cup of vinegar on the top shelf. Perfection! I was thrilled to have come up with a solution that actually worked, and to be cutting back on some of those nasty chemicals I'm sure the big box brands contain.
For storage, I put the tabs into re-used glass spaghetti sauce jars with air tight lids and just store them under my sink. I knew I saved those dang things for a reason.
I know there is some controversy out there about Borax, and I've done a little research myself. Most of the sites say that it's "okay" and a few say it may be linked to some health issues. I'm going to finish out this batch, then try another recipe that doesn't use it. All in all, the way I look at it is this: it may not be 100% completely natural and pure, but it's a heck of a lot better than the brand I was using and a huge step in the right direction.
Give it a whirl this weekend, it doesn't take but maybe 15 minutes and it's a super cheap, more natural alternative. Have fun!
DIY Dishwasher Tabs:
1 cup Borax
1 cup washing soda
1/4 cup Epsom salt
8 tbsp. lemon juice
10-20 drops lemon essential oil (optional)
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