Riding on yesterday’s post, I’m following with the recipe I used to make a batch of powdered detergent for our dishwasher (the appliance, not the wife). As I read her this opening line, she smirked and replied, “Speaking of dishwashing detergent, we need some more.” I guess that means it, too, was a success.

If you looked at my post on laundry detergent yesterday, and you tried it, you’ll be happy to know that many of the ingredients used cross over to this recipe. Since their was a large amount of washing soda and borax left over, making both detergents at the same time makes good sense. I had noticed several mentions of making this while researching yesterday’s laundry recipes, so I when I saw how much leftover ingredients I had that crossed over, I figured I’d go ahead and try this one as well.

The recipe is simple enough.

Dishwashing Detergent

• 1 cup borax
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup citric acid, food grade
• 1/2 cup kosher salt

Mix together well. Store in an air tight container.
Expect clumping due to the citric acid, though, so shake well or stir before using.
Usage is 1 Tbsp per load, double for a really dirty load. For really greasy dishes, I sometimes add a single drop of Dawn, but lately have even omitted that with no problems. The dishes simply come out CLEAN!

If you prefer, put a heaping tablespoon into a plastic egg carton and drop a single drop of liquid dish soap onto each pile of your home made detergent. Let it sit our for a week or two, and it will harden into a easy to grab drop-in detergent packet, similar to the ones you can buy now. Store in a container, and you can use any left over powder as you would the regular powder above.

It’s really that easy. The hardest part is collecting the ingredients. Salt, borax and washing soda can be found in most grocery stores. If you can’t find it, talk to the store manager, he should have no issue with getting it in, his job is to sell you what you want to buy, right?

Citric acid seems to be the trickiest one. Most grocery stores have it (used to prevent fruit from browning), only not in the cost effective quantities you need for this recipe. Your best bet would be a health food store, a brewing store, or online. I paid less than $4 per pound at a bulk supplier, and purchased 5 pounds at the time. That was 3 years ago, and I still have over 3 pounds left.

(Incidentally, citric acid a great additive for making fast, cheap fruit leathers for the kids –

Fast Fruit Leathers (Fruit Rollups)

• a jar of natural, unsweetened apple sauce,
• a packet of kool-aid flavor of your choice,
• a tablespoon (or in my daughter’s case 3 of them) of citric acid.

Combine the ingredients well, then put into your dehydrator on your fruit leather sheets.  The citric acid adds sourness (and vitamin C), something kids love. The unsweetened applesauce makes this a healthy, home made snack.

We have hard water that is almost drinkable, actually an impressive thing for south Florida it seems. I miss the days of drinking from mountain springs. In fact, a good friend of mine had a spring piped straight to his kitchen sink for the sole purpose of good drinking water. The rest of the house was plumbed to a well that offered fair water. The spring had an enclosure that sat well above the level of the house, and they rarely had issues, other than a severely cold winter night freezing the spring solid. You’d  get the occasional bit of sediment in the bottom of the glass, but I promise you it was the best drinking water I’ve had in my entire life. It was so good that when I happened to be along at the time when they cleaned it out, I didn’t care what I  saw swimming in their drinking water. Ah, the simple life!

(Sorry, another tangent!)

Sooooo, my water now is pretty hard, and tends to leave a haze on our glasses after washing them. Doesn’t do any harm, but becomes unsightly after several washes. I’ve found that rinsing agents help a lot, but are very costly. A great alternative is simple putting white vinegar into the rinse dispenser. For whatever reason, it works, leaving the glasses sparkling clear, just like when I used one of those $120 a gallon rinse aids ( do the math, $4 for 4 ounces). Now I use vinegar, at about $1.20 per gallon, a significant savings.

So now you have three more ways of saving yourself some money, while improving your life. Now take the savings and pay off some debt, invest it into hard assets, or squirrel it away fro a rainy day, something to further improve your life…

….just in case.

Peace,
db